The commercial printer visited the show last Thursday to sign for a secondhand Heidelberg XL 75-5+L, which will replace two older machines: a four-colour Komori and a five-colour Heidelberg SM 75.
Sam Reid, managing director of XL Press, said that the XL 75, which is only six years old, would add around 50%-60% capacity when it is installed at the firm’s new 1,100m2 facility next month.
“The makeready improvement is just incredible,” said Reid. “It takes five minutes on the new press versus 45-60 minutes on our current machines, plus we’re going from around 200 sheets of makeready waste down to 25.
“This will be a game-changer for us because it gives us the confidence to know that we can produce any job with minimal fuss; we could always print lovely solids but it might have taken an hour on the makeready.”
In addition to the makeready improvement, the firm’s new XL will run at almost double the speed of its older presses, at 15,000sph versus 8,000-9,000sph.
“Versus someone who’s running an old SM 74, say, we’ll be able to print the same four-colour job – 5,000 copies printed and out the door – almost by the time they’ve finished their makeready.”
Reid added that XL was also looking at digital kit at Ipex, with a possible upgrade to its Xerox 700 in the offing later this year.
