There will definitely be a lot of work for the book block solution FormerLine: One of the largest book printing companies, the CPI group, invests in a FormerLIne for their printing site at Clausen & Bosse in Leck, Germany. The system will take over the inline finishing as part of a production workflow that has been ordered recently.

“What is told is the exciting story of a smart Swabian worker that consequently forges ahead. She leaves nothing to chance, economizes and, step by step, wins the hearts of digital printers all around the world.“ Something like that would be the blurb for the story of the FormerLine from manroland web systems. Yet, firstly the book block solution has to prove itself in practice, as soon to be seen at the CPI group, which produces millions of books each day. At the production site in Leck, another digital pressline will fulfill the wishes of the customers and merchants for the future. These wishes include a fast delivery of small circulations at the best price attainable. Alwin Stadler, Vice President Digital Printing at manroland web systems, knows about the market development: “Publishers and printers start to rethink. In the past, they ran large offset circulations, sold the books and stored the ones that had been overproduced. This storage costs shall be saved today and this is the reason why a “just-in-time” digital production is needed.“

FormerLine means far reaching progress
From the second half of 2014, CPI in Leck will work with another digital printing press that will mostly produce four-color books. A Hewlett Packard press will print, the FormerLine and a new developed RIMA high-speed lift-collator will be reliable for the finishing. The suppliers install the configuration together as a team, steady communication is a must. “We show open interfaces, our finishing solutions are “comfortable” within a workflow with different press fabricants“, Mathias Klaus, Sales Manager at manroland web systems, points out. 

For CPI beneath good experiences also the latest market-driven technology has been decisive for choosing manroland web systems as their partner for digital inline finishing solutions. „CPI knows well about the competence of manroland web systems, our web offset machinery shows numerous presses from the supplier from Augsburg“, Guenter Pecher, Managing Director at CPI, explains. But the essential issue at the moment is the performance of the FormerLine The system offers fast job changes within a high automated finishing workflow, excellent efficiency and optimized paper usage. Besides, the book block solution convinces by its groundbreaking web lead. “This, in this manner, is a completely new feature“, explains Guenter Pecher. „The paper web runs over single formers. Thus, no single sections have to be cut off and handled. Actually this means that there is no fan out, what increases the product quality.“

Play the workflow to its strength
printnetworkBridge offers the industrial automation for digital finishing. The integrated workflow assures the automatic and therewith optimized production flow between prepress, press and folding components. The FormerLine itself is fast, flexible and efficient and, besides books, can also process catalogues and advertising flyers. The system can run with a web speed of up to 300 m/min. With the variable cut off (145 mm to 457 mm) the maximum web width is 1,067 mm. At CPI, the web will run over three formers. Together with a RIMA stacker, the system will be able to produce up to 8,000glued book blocks per hour.