ANDOVER, MA – More than 260,000 visitors from 188 countries crowded the halls in Düsseldorf as the print industry convened for drupa 2016. Approximately 75% of this year’s attendees were executives and top managers, making for a potent investment climate and excellent business opportunities. Standard Finishing Systems once again partnered with Horizon International of Japan and Hunkeler AG of Switzerland to show a comprehensive portfolio of feeding and finishing equipment.

Horizon and Hunkeler each ran more than 20 systems at the show, including brand new solutions such as new advancements in perfect binding and an innovative book destacking system. Visitors also had the chance to see popular multi-function finishing systems from Horizon like the SmartSlitter and Rotary Die Cutter, as well as new technologies from Hunkeler like the DynaCut function and enhanced WI6 web inspection and tracking. 

“Horizon and Hunkeler always set the bar high at tradeshows and drupa 2016 was no exception,” said David Reny, Executive Vice President at Standard. “It was a very successful event for us, and we were pleased to welcome an impressive number of North American customers to Dusseldorf and provide personalized tours in the Hunkeler and Horizon booths throughout the eleven days.”

Horizon Showcases Flexible Finishing, World Premieres

Horizon’s 16,000 square foot booth was the largest exhibit at drupa dedicated to post-press, featuring perfect bind, stitch, fold, and digital applications, as well as daily live presentations focused on finishing from the point of job creation. With the theme “Change the Focus,” Horizon encouraged showgoers to think differently about finishing by considering the complete production cycle of the printed product from concept to finish, and how Horizon’s Smart Finishing Solutions can enable end-to-end automation and production efficiency. 

Among the booth’s twenty-four working systems, the Standard Horizon BQ-480 Perfect Binder made its debut, showing off the quickest set-up and changeover for variable book production in its class, and unrivaled efficiency for book-of-one. The BQ-480 offers advanced automation through a movable, color touchscreen, interchangeable PUR and EVA glue tanks, and a gentle elevator delivery system with a mere 3/16” drop.

Also making its world premiere, the AFV-566 Folder series ushered in the next generation in folding, featuring faster production speeds, reduced set-up time, dynamic folding capabilities, and greater automation. The AFV-566 includes scoring navigation that can be done automatically through the touchscreen panel, automatic double-sheet detection to minimize waste, improved registration and sheet loading, and optional dynamic folding to change the fold pattern on-the-fly, which is key to minimizing blank sheets in signature production.

In addition, Horizon operated a suite of multi-function finishing systems including the SmartSlitter, an all-in-one smart sheet processing system that can slit, gutter cut, edge trim, cross-cut, perforate, and crease in a single pass, and the RD-4055 Rotary Die Cutter, which can die-cut, kiss-cut, crease, perforate, slit, hole punch, and round corner in one process for digital and offset printed sheets at up to 6,000 cycles/hour. 

Hunkeler Demonstrates New Advancements in Pre- and Post-Press

In the Hunkeler booth and at partner booths across the fairgrounds, Hunkeler presented a mix of first-ever showings, technology updates, and new in-line and near-line systems. Over 20 unique Hunkeler configurations were on display, exhibiting a comprehensive portfolio of unwinding, rewinding, cutting, stacking, perforating, punching, web inspection, tracking and folding solutions.

Debuting at the show, the BD7 Dynamic Book Destacker is an innovative solution that bridges the gap in the production of books with variable formats and page count, allowing the connection of Hunkeler book block solutions to any perfect binder and making it possible to go from roll to finished perfect bound book in one end-to-end process. The BD7 Destacker intelligently de-stacks book blocks of various format and thickness.

Hunkeler also introduced DynaCut, a proprietary technology for variable-format in-line book production. Demonstrated in the CS6-HS Cutter and SD7-II Stacker, the DynaCut function, with barcode-driven changes in sheet length, enables fully automatic variability of book block spine length between stacks and minimizes blank sheets. 

Also featured were an enhanced WI6 web inspection and tracking system, which ensures error-free print quality with a new space-saving design that integrates with inkjet printers and Hunkeler modules, as well as a dynamic newspaper and booklet production solution with fully automatic changeover. This configuration demonstrated two different roll-fed newspaper applications (tabloid and broadsheet), with unwinding on the UW7, cross-cutting in the CS7, sheet gathering in the DC7 Drum Collator, and parallel and cross-folding in the FC7 Folder and Collator. This system was also shown producing glued booklets and featured the newly updated HL6 Laser Module.

Hunkeler and Horizon solutions were in the spotlight at a diverse range of strategic partner booths from the digital print, inserting, finishing, software, and paper worlds. Live applications were shown in close cooperation with Bowe Systec, Canon, Fujifilm, HP, Ironsides, Komori, Meccanotechnica, Mondi Paper, Pitney Bowes, Ricoh, Screen, Ultimate Technographics, and Xerox. The date for the next drupa has already been set, and the fair will return to Düsseldorf from June 23-July 3, 2020.