May 18, 2001 – Crane Carton Company, Chicago, Illinois, recently acquired by Caraustar Industries, celebrated a record productivity milestone for the company and its Roland 900 press in April –- the 100 millionth impression run since installation of the press in July, 1998. At a recognition ceremony for the press crews held at Crane Carton-Caraustar Chicago’s production facility, Steve Korn, MAN Roland district sales manager and Jerry Manzi, MAN Roland director of sales - central region, said they were unaware of any other R900 that had run so many impressions in less than three years of service. Korn called Crane’s seven-color 40 x 56-inch format Roland 900 with coater “the most productive press of its kind on the planet.” The record production involved Crane’s primary products, six- and seven-color consumer food product packaging printed on 10 to 32 point board. Bruce A. Crane, General Manager of the plant lauded the supervisors and crews for doing a “tremendous job” and said that company management was very proud of their achievement. He attributed their success to good decision making by the press crews and predictability in the manner in which they ran the press. He praised the crews and MAN Roland service technicians for maintaining the press in condition to obtain top production speed and for keeping the equipment in an exemplary state of cleanliness.Crane Carton’s Roland 900 hits 100 Million impressions in record time. Crane also had praise for the management team that had recommended purchase of the R900. “We are accustomed to suppliers making many promises about the performance of their equipment,” said Bruce Crane. “In the case of the Roland 900 the press is as productive as was promised and has exceeded our expectations.” The Roland 900 has also played a role in maintaining Crane Carton-Caraustar Chicago’s reputation for quality and reliability with their customers. “Our reputation with both our large and small customers is that we are the most dependable quality supplier they have,” said Alan Crane, senior manager. “The MAN Roland 900 supports our reputation with both its technical ability and with its dependability. In terms of ability, the R900 prints better than any comparable press on the market – it holds color and holds dot register from cylinder to cylinder. In terms of reliability it requires very little down time for maintenance – it shows up ready for work every day. When we promise a customer we will deliver at a certain time we never have to make any excuses because of the R900.” Productivity features cited by Bruce Crane that contributed to the R900’s record performance include: a robust and reliable non-stop feeder that easily handles different board sizes; the semi-automatic Power Plate Loading (PPL) system that allows plates for the next job to be set in place while the current job is running; the brush-type cylinder washing devices that save significant time in cleaning up between jobs; the anilox roller and chambered doctor blade coating unit; the Seccomatic IR/Thermo-air dryer which allows the press to run at full speed without spray powder and the continuous non-stop delivery system. Also important to overall productivity are the PECOM Press Center control console which consolidates all major printing functions and stores up to 5000 jobs, fully automated format setting (sheet size, ink key positions and impression pressure) and fully automated quality control (color control, registration and sheet guiding). In addition to the R900, Crane Carton-Caraustar Chicago operates two additional smaller format MAN Roland R700 presses at this facility. Highly automated and offering both fast makeready and a printing speed of 13,000 sph, the Roland 900 sets standards that were previously achievable only in medium format presses. This high productivity combined with the large format has been designed to provide a new dimension of economy and competitive advantage in commercial printing.   One of Crane Carton’s press crews signals that the MAN Roland 900 press just hit the “100,000,000” impressions in less than three years since its installation at the Chicago plant.