The new sheetfed Roland 50 is likely to go up against the Heidelberg Anicolor, as well as other traditional B3 machines.

Gary Doman, MAN Roland sheetfed sales director, said: "MAN used to be in the B3 arena in the early '90s, so it is a return home for us. There is still a good market for the 520 and B3 presses and we hope we can compete with the likes of Ryobi and Heidelberg.

"It is old territory revisited because the machine is built from the same family tree as the 500, the 200 and the rest of the range. So it will be familiar to anyone that has a Roland. We have had a lot of enquiries about a B3 product over the last 12 months.

"We wanted to integrate the quality features of our large presses into the Roland 50 and open up new perspectives for printers in the 36/52 format class."

The Roland 50 has double-size impression cylinders and can process a range of substrates from 0.04-0.8mm.

The machine will be available for delivery from the autumn in two-, five- and six-colour configurations. Demonstrations of the product will run throughout Drupa.