KENNESAW, Ga., January 24, 2007 – Heidelberg USA today announced that Primary Color, a $50 million, high-end commercial printer based in Culver City, Calif., recently purchased a new Speedmaster XL 105 eight-color press with extended delivery as well as multiple bindery equipment additions from Heidelberg as part of a companywide upgrade of printing and bindery operations. New bindery additions include an automated Stahlfolder TH-82 folder, a Stitchmaster ST 90 six-pocket saddle stitcher with cover feeder and hand feed station, and a POLAR RA-4 jogger with pile turner and Transomat. The installations will take place in conjunction with the planned relocation of the company’s Culver City facility to El Segundo, Calif. in August 2007, and its Irvine, Calif. facility to Costa Mesa, Calif. in early 2008. According to Mike Hirt, vice president of Manufacturing, Primary Color expects to realize productivity gains of 50 percent as a result of the upgrades, including a 20 to 30 percent improvement in makereadies on the new XL 105. “Given our reputation for quality and brand consistency and our expertise in color management, we knew the XL 105 was the press for us.” The new machine will join Primary Color’s existing six- and eight-color Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 102 presses in the company’s new El Segundo headquarters, where it will be put to work turning out high-impact brochures and marketing collateral at its maximum real production speed of 18,000 iph. The fully automated Speedmaster XL 105 is the ideal high-volume production press for the commercial, label and packaging sectors, combining the shortest makeready with the highest real production speeds, contributing to maximum productivity and output. Features include: • Preset Plus Feeder, ensuring that sheets are fed stress-free, aligned precisely, and travel smoothly into the first unit. All material air adjustments are preset and storable. • AirTransfer system with Venturi sheet guide plates, allowing sheets of any stock to travel mark-free and register-true, even at full production speeds to 18,000 sph. • Autoplate Advanced for fast, precise, reliable plate changing. • Multi-functional Hycolor inking and dampening system with standard or short inking mode, always offering the right quantity of ink. The standard Vario system and the new roller wash-up reduce the washup time by 30 to 50 percent. • Highly automated chamber doctor blade coating unit with broad remote control functionalities. • Preset Plus Delivery, with aerodynamically designed gripper bars and perfectly adapted Venturi air sheet guide plates, stabilizing even the thinnest substrates at maximum production speeds. • DryStar 3000 dryers, perfectly adjusted to the air-guided sheet travel and 30 percent more powerful to secure proper drying even at maximum press speeds. CP2000-controlled and presettable, with final adjustments storable with the job. With the prospect of significant productivity gains in the pressroom, the longtime Heidelberg customer also saw the need to increase its bindery throughput with state-of-the-art, automated equipment. Hirt expects Primary Color’s upgraded bindery to yield significant productivity improvements once the new folder, stitcher and jogger are up and running in the company’s new El Segundo plant later this year. Efficient automation and the ergonomic design of the Stahlfolder TH/KH folder reduce changeover times and shorten makereadies. TH/KH folders can be combined with various types of deliveries, such as vertical or horizontal pressing stackers and offer a choice of pile feeder, continuous feeder or pallet feeder. Heidelberg’s Stitchmaster ST 90 saddlestitcher handles a wide range of products and substrates at speeds from 1,500 up to 9,000 cph. The signature feeders and the cover folder feeder are quick and easy to make ready from job to job, while a central operating panel on the stitcher section makes it easier for the operator to monitor the production of the entire machine. The stitcher can be configured in two-pocket increments on up to a cover feeder with eight pockets, multiple cover feeders or 10 pockets, and the stitching unit can accommodate up to four standard or loop-stitching heads. POLAR’s RA4 automated jogger with air removal and POLAR-Acme Weight Counting Scale enables fast load building and precise counts prior to counting. The POLAR pile-turner model PW-4ABV makes fast work of flipping loads between press passes and speeds drying due to airing. The compact Transomat palletizer model TR-E-130-5 automatically unloads both uncut and finished sheets into perfectly aligned piles that can be processed immediately, reducing production costs by up to 70 percent, depending on the cutting program. Primary Color relied on its longstanding relationship with Heidelberg when finalizing its capital investment and relocation plans. “Heidelberg has a wealth of experience in managing the whole process. It also has the broadest and most extensively integrated product portfolio in the business. We saw no reason to go anywhere else,” said Hirt.