Varimatrix 105 CS from Heidelberg Firmly Established in the Market with Over 60 Diecutters Sold

Both packaging and commercial printers speak in glowing terms of its quality, flexibility and cost-effectiveness

BEIJING—04/11/2007— At China Print 2005, Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) unveiled its Varimatrix 105 CS (CS stands for cutting and stripping) diecutter, a cost-effective entry-level solution for packaging and commercial printers. More than 60 of the diecutters have now been sold, over 60 percent of them installed in Europe. The first Varimatrix 105 CS in Germany was recently installed at Kohlschein in Viersen. This successful owner-run SME has been processing paper and cardboard for over 70 years. A workforce of 160 split between the company’s two sites develops and produces high-quality displays for all the big cosmetics manufacturers. The displays have very complicated designs that require many pieces of waste to be stripped. The Varimatrix 105 CS removes these automatically with its stripping station. The company’s Manager and Head of Marketing Oliver Höflich summarizes his positive impressions as follows: “The display production process is much more effective with the Varimatrix 105 CS because staff no longer have to strip manually and are able to concentrate on more skilled work. The automated production process also eliminates manual sources of error.”

Prague-based print shop K.P.R., where the Czech Republic’s first Varimatrix 105 CS has been up and running since last summer, also swears by the diecutter. Commercial printing used to be dependent on external suppliers but the Varimatrix has now made it possible to generate much greater added value in-house. “Because the wide variety of jobs we undertake necessitates relatively frequent die-cutting, we have also invested in postpress,” explains print shop Director Ji?í Tomek. In addition to the greater flexibility of the Varimatrix 105, the K.P.R. print shop particularly appreciates its high productivity and shorter make-ready times. Thanks to the diecutter, K.P.R. achieves production speeds of 6,000 to 7,000 sheets per hour, depending on the complexity of the job. At the same time - thanks to the large sheet format of 75 x 105 centimeter (29.5 x 41.3 inch) that can be processed - more blanks per sheet can be printed and die-cut on the Varimatrix. The main factor in achieving significantly shorter make-ready times than with the old diecutters was the fact that the Varimatrix offers a whole host of automation and control elements that provide information relating to the individual machine component settings. K.P.R. is now also able to archive tools - once they have been set up - with the help of thin, exchangeable plates. This significantly reduces the preparation time for repeat jobs. The Prague print shop currently uses the Varimatrix 105 CS for runs of approximately 100 sheets and above, but the diecutter can also be used for jobs running to over 300,000 sheets.