No press manufacturer has a higher profile in the 40" sheetfed market than Heidelberg, and none has invested more in pushing the capabilities of this equipment as far as it might be thought possible for the technology to go. But Heidelberg isn’t done innovating in full-size sheetfed, and it is convinced—flat demand for offset presses of all sizes notwithstanding—that there’s room in the crowded 40" category for a niche-specific addition in that format to its well-known Speedmaster family.

The Speedmaster CX 102, introduced in the U.S. at an event at Heidelberg’s Kennesaw, GA, headquarters earlier this month, is a high-capacity sheetfed press built to fill the niche that the company indirectly created after it launched its flagship full-size press, the 41" Speedmaster XL 105, in 2004. Over time, the performance gap between that ultra-sophisticated machine and Heidelberg’s most widely installed industrial press, the 40" Speedmaster CD 102, widened to a point where offering an alternative with capabilities somewhere between the two made sense.

Heidelberg’s keen sense of this segment also told it that while every 40" printer wants more automation, greater short-run efficiency, and higher running speed, not every printer wants to go to the top of the product line to get them—an insight that signaled the opportunity that the Speedmaster CX 102 is designed to leverage.