Italian commercial printer Union Printing of Viterbo, north of Rome, has successfully installed a new-generation Goss Universal press to fulfill existing customer requirements. The installation signifies a new strategic direction for the company in exploiting advanced coldset capabilities to provide a lower-cost production solution.

The Universal XL press installed at Union Printing consists of two towers with a 1700 mm width and 578 mm cut-off. Equipped with two folders, one 1:3:3 and one 1:2:2, each with one former and a quarterfold, it runs at 40,000 copies per hour. Additional turner bars above the four-high towers allow the web to be split in up to four ribbons, enhancing production versatility. Union Printing also chose to include automatic blanket washing and color and register controls for improved efficiency. The press is configured in a T90 layout – with reelstands at right angles to the press – to optimize the space available and provide a number of operational advantages.

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 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.

Since installation, Union Printing has employed the new press in producing an array of tabloid-format flyers and inserts for supermarkets, most commonly in paginations between 12 and 32 pages. The press has also been successfully printing magazine-format products for companies such as CONAD (Consorzio Nazionale Dettaglianti), which operates one of the largest supermarket chains in Italy.

"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 might be seen by some as a gamble, but we felt confident that this press would continue to ensure a clean print and maintain the color impact and consistency we have been used to in the past. Since it has been in production, our customers have been very happy too."

The Universal XL press is a latest-generation model in the successful Universal press series. Featuring a double-width, single-around cylinder format, it was developed to meet demand for smaller circulations of high-pagination products. The wider format allows Union Printing to meet its output requirements with fewer webs and towers, while maintaining the efficiency and versatility of single-around production. For Union Printing, the key attributes of the Universal XL are that it is modern, reliable, flexible, easy to use and capable of high-quality print. The company chose the press after an exhaustive review of all options and thorough testing on different stocks.