The firm claims to have combined the benefits of flexo printing with the strong points of offset.
Drent Goebels sleeve technology allows the print length to be set steplessly between 381mm and 762mm.

The different sized sleeves are easily swapped over by the press operator. They are lightweight less than 10kg so changeover is easy, said marketing manager Fintan Planting. It was origi-nally developed for flexible packaging where customers need to produce many different sized products, from soups to toothpaste, for example.

Drent Goebel claims that VSOP spells the end for traditional sizegroups. When changing printing size only two light-weight sleeves need to be changed. With this development size-variable sleeves, which contributed so greatly to thre rise of flexo printing, can now be used in offset printing.

The VSOP press will be introduced offi-cially at the end of the year, and will ship in the summer of 2003.

The VSOP press can be seen in action in Hall 12, Stand 640.

Story by Jo Francis