The Young Printing Executives club held their monthly meeting at             manroland's Print Technology Center in Westmont on October 7.  Sponsored by the Printing Industries of Illinois and Indiana (PII), club members consist of printing leaders under the age of 40.  The group experienced a full range of manroland's print technologies that included a demonstration of the impressive ROLAND 700 DirectDrive, the world's fastest makeready press.

Julie Rock, President of PII, opened the session and welcomed everyone to the Printing Technology Center, which is part of manroland's North American headquarters and is the site of hundreds of press demonstrations each year.  Julie Kreger, a manroland Sheetfed Sales associate, provided the group with an overview of the company's many technology innovations.  She also discussed how these technologies have benefitted printers, allowing them to produce work faster, better, and more efficiently.  Kreger mentioned how manroland presses can set printers apart from the competition by handling a wide range of work with different substrates and sizes.

Doug Zirkelbach, a manroland Sales representative, led the main event of the night with a demonstration of the ROLAND 700 DirectDrive. Regarded by customers as a makeready monster, the press is perfect for short-run, high performance work with printers who use long perfectors with 8, 10, or 12 units and do a significant amount of perfecting work. With plate changing and wash-up occurring simultaneously and on-the-fly print length adjustments, no other 40-inch press on the market is as fast nor can boast of these multi-tasking options.

"We greatly appreciate the support we receive from our industry suppliers," said Joanne Rock, Executive Vice President of PII.  "manroland offered both a convenient meeting location and the opportunity for us to view and learn more about its new DirectDrive technology.  Our group was impressed at how the press sets a new benchmark in makeready performance."