Members of the North American Packaging Association (NAPA) attended an Open House event at manroland's Print Technology Center in Westmont on September 17.  In Chicago for the Fall Leadership Meeting, NAPA attendees learned more about the extensive packaging capabilities the company has to offer.  They left impressed by what they saw of the ROLAND 700 DirectDrive, the world's fastest makeready press.

The demonstration of the ROLAND 700 DirectDrive included running four jobs back-to-back to show the "zero time" plate changing capability of the 40-inch press.  The NAPA group was amazed by its multi-tasking functions as the press changed plates while it performed wash-up between jobs.  manroland's master printer crew ran the four production jobs of about 300 sheets each in less than 22 minutes, including standard pulls for quality checks.

"The makeready speed of the press really surprised our audience," said Scott Miller, NAPA President. "This press represents a great improvement over existing technology.  It really is as fast as manroland and its customers say it is."

Ideal for short-run, high performance work, DirectDrive is for printers who use long perfectors with 8, 10 or 12 units and print a substantial amount of perfecting jobs.  For label overpack and commercial type jobs, it also corrects fit problems on the fly from the operator's console.  This press also prints on substrates up to 1mm thick.

While the ROLAND 700 DirectDrive was the highlight, NAPA members enjoyed a full schedule during their manroland visit.  After a company overview, the group also learned about the ROLAND 500 and ROLAND 900 press capabilities and   operating techniques.  They were interested in UV printing and learned not only how the ROLAND 900 can handle heavy stocks (up to 48 pt.) and plastics, but its role with Inline Foiler Prindor.  Agenda topics also covered waste reduction     process improvement and color management.