The 96 series – there is a four-colour and five-colour – are Sakurai’s biggest-ever presses (barring the OL2102, a one-back-one B1 book press designed for and mainly sold on the domestic Japanese market). The 96 series machines have a maximum sheet size of 965x640mm, which is enough to produce an eight-up A4 to view sheet with a bleed of 5mm around all edges: the core diet of a B1 press, in fact and one that might just fit nicely with today’s drives to reduce waste and spend less on ever more expensive paper. “When you analyse the average workload of a B1 press, you find the jobs that call for the full width and length of the sheet are in a very small minority,” says Sakurai UK product manager David Ryan. “Other pressures are beginning to make themselves felt, like the need to be keeping waste paper to a minimum and the fact that paper costs are going up all the time. The SRA1 philosophy fits very nicely with that.”

Top of the tree
The over-riding aim of the series was to produce a press that was spec’d to the top of the tree, with no automation compromise, “for a price that encourages printers to move up to the next format, without the burden of capital repayments while they’re finding their way in a new market,” says Ryan.

To achieve the delicate balance between cost and features, Sakurai has redesigned and rationalised its entire range of offset presses. Spanning some nine machines in total, across the 58cm (B3) and 66cm (SRA2) formats as well as this new 96cm format, the redesign sees all nine presses now housed in the same basic chassis, with a high level of common parts that drives production costs down. The new design/production philosophy was timed to coincide with the re-equipping of Sakurai’s main production facility in Japan – the firm’s 60th birthday present to itself – that saw the robotisation of all production lines, which now work 24/7 with minimal human intervention. Since 2001, when Sakurai began its rationalising drive, the company has delivered more than 400 common-component presses for the worldwide market.

Full complement
The two 96 series machines – which are available only as straight machines, not perfectors – carry a weighty tally of automation for their tiny price tag, beginning with a full complement of presets and ending with an automated ink duct adjustment system. There’s the usual list of semi-automatic plate changing; remote control plate register and plate cylinder cocking; automatic blanket and ink roller washing; a separate automatic impression cylinder wash; a powder sprayer, anti-static device and a sheet decurler and an ultrasonic double-sheet detector that ‘sounds out’ the sheet thickness progressing down the feed table. According to Ryan, this feature is hardly ever used: “I don’t know why it’s there, to be honest, because the mechanical double detector that measures the thickness is so good that nothing ever gets through it.” Spec sheets also claim a high-pile delivery, but unfortunately the 96 series presses are so new to Sakurai UK that until the first machine lands in the London showroom at the end of this month, when somebody can take a tape measure to it, nobody knows quite how high the high-pile is.

There are also some interesting features included as standard. Sakurai has picked up on the quick standby technology of its Japanese rivals and now offers its own SCCII system. At the end of a run the 96 machine adopts an ‘auto drive position’ in which the ink ducts stop feeding and allow the ink on the rollers to drive itself down. After the last sheet is printed, the press automatically goes into a wash-up cycle. After washing, it reads the next job in the queue, including a scan of the plates that will next be mounted, and flows ink from the ducts onto the rollers at the right levels to begin.

Printers used to a B1 machine may miss an off-press control desk, Sakurai has opted for a cost-saving on-press touchpad known as the Sakurai Interactive System. The SIS not only controls the press but, using Sakurai’s Ace-Net information network, gives running information that can be fed back into an MIS, together with diagnostic information, for fault-finding. Ace-Net can be accessed remotely through the internet and can provide reports at the end of a shift, or on-the-fly.

Despite the high level of standard automation, the 96 series machines do still have various options. Printers can, for instance, match the ink duct adjustment system to an optional closed-loop colour control system that works via the standard spectrophotometer or densitometer. There’s a CIP3 and CIP4 interface. There are several ink and blanket washes: as standard is a choice between Sakurai’s own system and a Baldwin OEM, while a third choice is the Italian Elettra system that carries different wash cycles from heavy-duty to fast, all of which can be automatically matched to the last job’s substrate and ink levels.

Temperature controls
One extra that isn’t an option for UK sales of the Oliver 96 series will be ink temperature control. “It’s a standard feature on a B1 press, because of the heat generated by bigger rollers and generally faster running speeds,” points out Ryan. “So we’ve made it standard for the UK as well, because it’s a big boost to controlling the quality.”

Given their first public airings at Japan’s national trade show IGAS and in the US at GraphExpo, both last month, the two presses will be officially launched in Europe at Drupa next year; those who don’t want to wait can see them in action at Sakurai’s London open day at the beginning of November. Sakurai is aiming not just at commercial printers moving up into the eight-to-view bracket, but also at existing B1 houses who need a low-cost production workhorse as a second-string machine. “This is a great format,” Ryan says. “It’s not new, but it dropped out of favour in Europe when we started focusing on B formats a couple of decades ago. Now is the time to rediscover it, and the benefits it brings.”

THE ALTERNATIVES
Heidelberg SM 102
Heidelberg’s ubiquitous flagship is not an SRA1 but a B1 press and carries a price tag to match. The basic machine is far more basic than the Oliver, although it does include a blanket wash, remotely adjustable diagonal register and Alcolor continuous dampening.

Maximum sheet size 1,020x720mm
Minimum sheet size 420x400mm
Maximum print speed 13,000sph
Maximum paper thickness 0.8mm
Price: SM 102-4 (four-colour) from £464,000
Contact Heidelberg UK 020 8490 3500/
www.heidelberg.com

MAN Roland 700
Like the Sakurai, MAN Roland’s B1 offering also comes with semi-automatic plate changing as standard, as well as automatic blanket and cylinder wash, but has higher top speed and can handle substrates up to 1mm thick.

Maximum sheet size 780x1,040mm
Minimum sheet size 340x380mm
Maximum print speed 17,000sph
Maximum paper thickness 1mm
Price £670,000 (HiPrint five-colour)
Contact MAN Roland GB www.man-roland-gb.com
020 8648 7090

Komori Lithrone S40
Another Japanese machine, but again a B1 press rather than SRA1. Base price covers more automation than the Oliver, including a fully-automatic plate change, all three main cylinder washes and a full range of presets.

Maximum sheet size 720x1,030mm
Minimum sheet size 360x520mm
Maximum print speed 16,000sph
Maximum paper thickness 1mm
Price: Lithrone S4-40 from £750,000
Contact Komori UK 01132 799900/www.komori.com

Ryobi 920 series
The Ryobi machines have also been subject to scrutiny to keep their automation in balance with their price. The standard spec covers semi-automatic plate changing and a range of presets, but blanket, ink roller and impression cylinder cleaning, and ink temperature control are extras. There is a four- and five-colour, but perfecting is not an option. It has a high-pile feed and an off-press controller.

Maximum sheet size 920x625mm
Minimum sheet size 410x290mm
Maximum print speed 16,200sph
Maximum paper thickness 0.6mm
Price: Ryobi 924 (four-colour press) from £450,000
Contact Apex Digital Graphics 01442 235236/
www.apexdigital.co.uk