Italian commercial printer Union Printing of Viterbo, 70 km north of Rome, has taken a new strategic direction with an order for a Goss Universal press. The new-generation press will fulfill existing customer requirements by providing high-quality coldset capabilities for producing supermarket flyers and inserts at lower costs.

The new Universal XL press is the latest version of the successful Universal press series. Featuring a double-width, single-around cylinder format, the model has been developed to meet demand for smaller circulations of high-pagination products. The wider format will allow Union Printing to meet its output requirements with fewer webs and towers, while maintaining the efficiency and versatility of single-around production.

With a combination of sheetfed, web and digital press equipment, Union Printing is an exclusively commercial printer, producing a full range of products, from brochures and art books to heatset inserts and flyers. According to owner and managing director Roberto Pepponi, the company's decision to investigate alternative coldset configurations was driven by a desire to achieve a lower price point offering for customers struggling to maintain standards with reduced budgets.

The Universal XL press for Union Printing will consist of two towers, 1700 mm wide with a 578 mm cut-off. Equipped with two 1:3:3 folders, each with one former and a quarterfold, it will run at 40,000 copies per hour, printing multiple paginations in production modes of 4 – 16 full-color tabloid pages straight and 16 – 32 full-color tabloid pages collect. Further features specific to this installation include: blanket wash and color and register controls as well as additional turner bars above the four-high towers to cut the web in up to four ribbons prior entering the folder. The press will be configured in a T90 layout, with reelstands at right angles to the press.

Although Goss International is not an existing supplier to Union Printing, according to Pepponi, initial meetings indicated a positive, open approach to the printer's challenge and led to positive, creative discussions of a wide range of options. "Right from the outset it was refreshing to deal with Goss International and their agent, New Age; a level of trust was established very early in proceedings. At no point did they try to convince us that were taking the wrong approach or try to sell us a more expensive option. From the beginning, they wanted to partner with us to find a real, practical solution that would meet the clearly defined objectives."

The objectives for Union Printing were to achieve a lower-cost, high-productivity solution that would be acceptable to their customers for high-volume supermarket and retail inserts as well as editorial publications, in runs up to 40,000 copies. The press needed to be modern, reliable, flexible, easy to use and capable of high-quality print. Union Printing chose the Universal XL after an exhaustive review of all options and thorough testing on different stocks.

"We were very pleased with the compact solution of the double-width Universal, which allows for only two towers instead of four single-width towers. But quality was the decisive factor in choosing this press," comments Pepponi. "Going from heatset to coldset, we needed to ensure a clean print and maintain color impact and consistency. We were more than satisfied with the results of the tests, and more importantly our customers were happy too."

The press is scheduled for delivery in July, less than six months after contract signing.