The 2,000th Speedmaster XL 106 recently left the production line in Wiesloch-Walldorf and is now being installed at Japanese customer Toyama Sugaki. With this, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) is celebrating another milestone for this Peak Performance class press. Packaging printer Toyama Sugaki, based in Toyama in Japan with 270 employees, is taking delivery of a seven-color Speedmaster XL 106 with coating unit and extended delivery. It specializes in packaging for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Toyama Sugaki likes the short makeready times, the perfect print quality, and the high production speed of the new press. The Speedmaster XL 106-7+L with anniversary cover on the printing unit will be inaugurated with a certificate on site by Heidelberg Japan and the customer. It will be the company’s second Heidelberg press alongside a Speedmaster SX 74-4-P-H chosen by the customer for its machine fleet. 

Success model adaptable to individual customer requirements

The Speedmaster XL 106 has proven itself in industrial commercial and packaging printers, label printers, and web-to-print printers, which like the wide range of configuration options in the 70x100 format class. Heidelberg is the market and technological leader here. 70% of the presses are used by commercial printers, and 30% are used by packaging printers. The press has been consistently enhanced in consultation and in field tests with customers, and is setting industry leading standards in terms of productivity and flexibility. For example, today with maximum automation and integration into digitized processes it is achieving output that would never have been thought possible before. This is made possible by Heidelberg’s Prinect printing and media workflow in combination with the unique Push to Stop operating philosophy, where the operator only needs to intervene to stop the process. As a result, the autonomous press room is becoming more and more a reality, significantly increasing customers’ productivity and profitability. With the Speedmaster XL 106, up to 90 million printed sheets per year are realistic.

Always more and more productive

The Speedmaster XL 105 was introduced at drupa 2004, and the 1,000th printing unit was celebrated at Graphitalia in Italy back in 2006, followed by the 2,500th printing unit for Benson Box in England in 2007. New features like the perfecting device, AutoPlate XL, and double coating applications were successfully presented at drupa 2008, leading to the 1,000th Speedmaster XL 105 being sold to Colordruck Baiersbronn in Germany in 2011. Further developments like a perfecting rate of 18,000 sheets per hour, a new 106 format, and new washing concept were premiered at drupa 2012, and the press was renamed the Speedmaster XL 106. 

This was followed in 2014 by the sale of the 10,000th printing unit to Sim‘Edit in France. At drupa 2016, the press was presented with Hycolor Multidrive, AutoPlate XL 2, Prinect PressCenter XL 2, and a new design. As well as many other awards, the Speedmaster XL 106 won the German Design Award that year, and was therefore recognized for its user friendliness and benefit to the customer.

The next milestone is just around the corner, with the 15,000th Speedmaster XL 106 printing unit due to be shipped shortly.