InlineDensity Control motorized (IDCm) has a very successful market introduction behind it. Ten commercial printing systems have been or resp. will be equipped with IDCm. That shows clearly that the demand for an ink mesuring technology and its’ retrofitting exists. The customers are European, for example the printing houses from the EDS Group because this is where the demands for higher print quality and high pricing pressure meet.
Three main benefits are seen by printers using IDCm, the automated ink measurement system in commercial printing, explains Günter Braun from manroland web systems: “An optimal manning of the machine, quality assurance and quality documentation, and as a result reduced waste.” The customers confirm what the regional head of sales claims. This is surely then the reason why IDCm has established itself as an attractively priced inline ink density control system within the space of a year and has already been installed ten times.
Planable ROI is a convincing factor
Among the above mentioned users are large German printing houses and renowned commercial printers such as Haberbeck, Lage, as well as Adam NG, Bruchsal, where an IDCm has replaced an existing competitor’s system. The Euro-Druckservice GmbH (EDS), Passau, which operates in the middle and eastern European markets, has equipped their commercial printing systems in three locations with IDCm: Svoboda Press in Prague and Severotisk in ústí, both in the Czech Republic, as well as Zrínyi Nyomda in Budapest. In the Hungarian production site IDCm is part of a comprehensive retrofit of the InlineControl Systems. Günther Braun has been talking with many customers and knows: “Printing systems with the latest in cutting edge technology enable printers to have a competitive edge over the market. Regarding IDCm, the decisive factor is the plan-ability of the investment and the ROI. We are in a position to calculate the savings on working hours and the production profits which would come about as a result of the switch over to an automated ink measurement system from the existing manual system, for us in advance.”
Narrow, broad, third party product
Most customers capitalize on a retrofit of an older machine with IDCm and are equipping themselves with an Inline ink measurement system for the first time. Or they are replacing an older or resp. discontinued system. The IDCm system developed by manroland web systems and grapho metronic, Munich, is intended for narrow 16 or 32 page commercial printing systems from the ROTOMAN and LITHOMAN series. In the meantime however IDCm has proved itself to be of interest for the broader LITHOMAN as well as for third party systems.
manroland web systems and their customers have once again proved themselves to be technologically creative and grapho metronic, the specialists in measurement and control technology are supporting them in this regard. This is how the IDCm system was implemented for the broad web of an 80 page LITHOMAN and received two measuring sensors. These enable the IDCm system to control more quickly across a broader commercial printing system and hereby to achieve an excellent performance overlap between IDCm and IDC. Another demonstration of competence and proof of the uniqueness of IDCm is that shortly it will be implemented on a commercial printing machine, which was not produced by manroland web systems, for the first time. This is no problem from the technology side. The customer simply delivers grapho metronic their requirements as a producer; they in turn deliver the measurement values in the measurement quality expected.
IDCm or IDC?
What is the difference between IDCm and the system that has proved itself with over 5,000 measuring sensors, IDC (InlineDensity Control)? Whereas IDC uses stationary positioned cameras in order to control the ink density on the basis of colour marks in a print control strip, IDCm avails of a traversing measurement module. That is how we achieve a low cost price and a constructive uncomplicated upgrade process. Just as with the IDC, IDCm measures and controls ink metering in order to comply with given target resources in personnel, time and material. When compared with IDC, IDCm has a longer adjustment speed and therefore controls the ink more slowly to begin with. But IDCm achieves the same measurement quality, as IDC once the ink is set. One thing is valid for both ink density control systems: The preset values improve themselves in these learning systems and are therefore the basis for PECOM and fine adjustment of the inking. As a general rule IDCm does not have to be integrated within a PECOM-X environment and can work as a Stand-Alone-Solution.