Pennsauken, New Jersey — With business booming over the past few years, Royalty Press needed to upgrade its workflow beyond the two-up sheet size. But when it contacted its press vendor, Royalty found that the manufacturer’s half-size format lacked the capacity that would move the company forward. The solution: Installation last summer of a six-color ROLAND 300 perfector at the 25-employee facility. Designed to handle a 23.23 x 29.13 inch sheet, the MAN Roland machine gives Royalty the ability to print jobs six-up. That results in a 50% output gain, compared to the four-up limits of traditional half-size presses. “We checked out the Speedmaster 74 and realized it was kind of an odd size – what they call the half-size,“ says Scott Lang, President and Co-Founder of Royalty. Lang did some research and found that MAN Roland offered a three-quarter format press with all the automation his company required to keep his customers satisfied. Royalty’s name aptly describes how it treats its clients. “Being a company that is big enough to offer comprehensive services, yet small enough to deal one-on one with customers, Royalty Press is unique among our peers in the printing industry,” the company proclaims in its mission statement. Lang expected the same high level of commitment from his new press supplier, and he received it throughout the installation and ramp-up process: “We are very impressed with our MAN Roland representative, Clay Oliff, and the technicians from MAN Roland. They helped us plan out our pressroom; they answered our questions; and they were here whenever we needed them.” The ROLAND 300 adds a new level of firepower to a pressroom that also retains its two-up equipment. The new press’ six-up format and 15,000 sheet per hour run rate equips Royalty to go after jobs that previously had been performed by shops with 40-inch equipment. For shorter run jobs, Royalty’s ROLAND actually beats larger presses at their own game since the smaller format facilitates faster changeovers between jobs. What’s more, Lang estimates that makereadies on his 300 are 25 to 30 percent faster than on comparably sized systems. PECOM automation is the reason why. “Our press operators love PECOM,” he says. “They learned the basics fairly quickly, and now they’re delving deeper in the system’s capabilities. PECOM takes most of the manual labor out of makeready process.” Royalty Press took advantage of MAN Roland’s PowerPrinter Certification Course to put its crews on the fast track. The effort is a week-long training program conducted at MAN Roland’s Graphic/Training Center outside of Chicago and features intensive hands-on instruction. The course is designed to get both operators and supervisors fully up-to-speed on PECOM automation and Computer Integrated Manufacturing. “We found the PowerPrinter training to be very worthwhile, and our pressmen thought it was great,” Lang notes. “They had no experience at all on a press with a high level of automation the ROLAND 300 provides. PowerPrinters gave them the skills and the confidence they need to make the most of the 300 for our customers.” Royalty is so impressed with the dividends PowerPrinter training provides that the company is sending its new pressroom supervisor, Ben Diggins, for the course as part of his orientation. “He’s an extremely experienced press operator, who will not only oversee the pressroom, but will print during our main shift on the ROLAND 300. So we want him to be very familiar with the capabilities of this new machine.” Lang’s favorite ROLAND 300 capability is its six-up format: “Certain jobs we used to run one-up, we’re now producing six-up, so the increase in productivity is enormous.” He also is partial to his new press’ perfecting feature: “We’re realizing huge efficiencies there, doing a lot of 1/1 and 2/2 jobs. We’re also running 4/1 covers on the MAN Roland and coating them in-line, in a single pass.” Significantly, the ROLAND 300 is the only 3/4 press to offer perfecting, which is a standards feature on the press. While Royalty uses the press’ perfector 20 percent of the time, the system’s coating unit is dialed in on a majority of jobs. “Many of our customers request coating for appearance and durability,” Lang explains. “But there’s a lot of stuff we coat as a value-added service to our clients. Coating seals the ink, so when the job comes off the press, we can cut it and fold it right away. That lets us get the work in and out the door quicker, which saves time and money for everybody.”