McCormick Place, Chicago- As soon as visitors to manroland's Print Technology Center have had a chance to see the Roland 700 HiPrint High Speed press in operation at a blinding 18,000 sheets per hour, it will be shipped to Stephenson Printing (Alexandria, VA) to upgrade the versatile printer's sheetfed printing operations.

George Stephenson, President of Stephenson Printing said, "While the high printing speed is nice to have, we really bought the ROLAND 700 HiPrint HS press because it has all the latest integrated technologies that support fast makereadies. This will allow us to print 500 or 15,000 copies or less of the multipage work (up to 300+ pages) that we specialize in, and still be cost effective."

"This technology will also let me push much more work through my sheetfed department with the same labor I currently have in  less time  and startup waste," he said.  "I anticipate doubling my workflow with the same bodies"

While the high print throughput of the ROLAND 700 HiPrint HS is ideally suited for long run package and commercial printing, its makeready technologies allow printers to pursue much shorter runs that have not been cost-effective on this class of equipment in the past. Depending on workflow factors and press configuration, printers can expect up to a 33 percent or more increase in productivity.

The ROLAND 700 HiPrint HS has a maximum sheet size of 29"x41" which provides more space to maximize the number of pages and multiple-up images. This is particularly beneficial for printers of page work, folding cartons, labels, books, or other products outside the DIN A formats.

Various QuickChange options to automate air settings, adjust heights to thicknesses, engage rapid washing, reduce ink change time and many other functions are employed to dramatically reduce makeready times. autoprint Smart allows the operator to initiate an intelligent automated series of job preparation and press tuning functions at the press of a single button.

The QuickStart press control accelerates the press up to production speed before engaging the feeder. This achieves near optimal inking in the printing unit from the first sheet to avoid excessive substrate waste.

A new HS feeder improves vibration resistance, air control, sheet separation and sheet transfer, along with virtually continuous pile elevation control. The delivery is equipped with the new SelectDryer IR/TL Performance, a new dryer for more efficient and rapid drying of inks and coatings.

Users of the ROLAND 700 HiPrint HS press also benefit from manroland's futureproof design philosophy which enables printers to invest in the best printing technology, safe in the knowledge that as the market changes they can too, through installing upgrades and a range of retrofittable options in the future as required.

Stephenson said his company purchased its first manroland press in 1962 and since that time it has purchased about 30 others. Stephenson Printing currently operates two manroland 6-color presses and a manroland 8-color sheetfed press. With the high throughputs and fast makereadies of the ROLAND 700 HiPrint HS, they anticipate retiring one of these soon.