manroland meets newspaper industry challenges at NEXPO ‘08

The manroland booth at this year’s NEXPO show for the newspaper industry was a busy place!  A steady stream of show attendees, editors and customers kept the sales teams from manroland and ppiMedia very busy.  Sales people participated on panels, customer meetings and an off-booth technical breakfast.  manroland continued the theme this year's of "Applied Innovations" showing the latest developments in printing and software technology.

On the press side, the booth featured a video loop full of information on the inkjet project, UV curing and the latest Colorman press.  manroland has partnered with Kodak on a high-speed inkjet printer that is mated to a newspaper web press.  Footage of the Versamark inkjet in production on a European web press was shown on the video screen while a mock-up of the inkjet head was mounted in a static display.  The video head and samples generated the most interest among attendees.  The Versamark inkjet head is capable of printing a 4” wide area anywhere on the web at full production speed of 3,000 feet per minute.

To demonstrate the UV curing process, there was a static display at the booth and a guest speaker.  Eltex has been chosen as our partner for UV curing because of its advanced technology Innocure curing chamber.  A full chamber was on display in the booth with simulated UV lighting.  Representatives of manroland and Eltex provided demonstrations to interested prospects throughout the show.  The Innocure chamber uses a proprietary electrical charge technology to remove the laminar layer of air attached to a moving web.  The air is replaced with inert nitrogen as the web moves under the UV lamps.  Without the oxygen from the air, the curing process takes only 12” at full press speeds so this chamber is the smallest in size and most effective cure in the industry.  At the technology breakfast, Mr. Thomas Unterberger of Herold Druck in Austria, discussed the Innocure chamber and how it has helped the newspaper to grow sales.

The featured video testimonial, made especially for NEXPO, discussed how Transcontinental, Transmag Division selected manroland and the Colorman press.  Mr. Michel Levesque and his production team were interviewed on how the Colorman press was the best in its class for performance.  They also explained that manroland was chosen because of the installation project management, ongoing maintenance support and operator training.

IFRA Color Quality awards were won by two manroland customers.  Grand Rapids press runs a GEOMAN press with 8 print units and 64 couples.  Peoria Journal Star also runs a GEOMAN press with 6 print units and 48 couples.

The manroland software division, ppiMedia was kept busy with demonstrations and training.  The company provides workflow management software for the newspaper industry and had many interested IT, marketing, production, and advertising people stop by from a wide range of

newspapers around the continent.  A special guest speaker, Mrs. Nanette Wolf, the CEO of A. Bieg in Germany discussed how her company benefitted from ppi software and how they added modules to a basic configuration.  The exhibit at the booth of live software attracted a new audience of international prospects.

Overall, the NEXPO was a success for manroland.  Though the attendance was a little less than in previous years, the same number of companies came to the show, but with fewer people.  The attendees represented qualified, serious buyers of technology and pressroom products and were able to move forward on current investment projects.  See you at NEXPO ’09 in Las Vegas!

manroland's Al Miller featured in whattheythink.com article on NEXPO 08