Short-cycle on-demand printing requires efficient post-press processing equipment, a binding machine for online work, a folding machine, and a thread-locking machine are important features for automating post-press equipment.
To meet the market demand for on-demand printing, it is not only that the printing press is easier to install and easier to operate, but if the corresponding post-press field is not given the necessary attention, it must be shared with prepress and printing processes. Development will affect the overall printing efficiency.
New requirements for the printing market require the concept of mechanical design. The new concept of mechanical metering requires changing the machine design pattern, improving the information technology, and connecting the sewing machine, binder and folding machine via the network: automatic assembly and control technology enabling remote management To be achieved, reducing the workload of operating workers.
JDF came into being. JDF is a data transmission format between one terminal port and another terminal port. It has brought huge impact to the printing industry and has been widely accepted. Compared with prepress equipment and printing equipment suppliers, postpress equipment manufacturers are not as active in the CIP4 organization, but the main manufacturers of postpress equipment are Wohlenberg and Muller Martint. Heidelberg and Heidelberg are both important members of CIP4. They are all committed to the realization of the perfect JDF goal.
JDF's philosophy is that a magazine, booklet, book or book can be pre-programmed in the machine during the production phase, which saves production time. The most important thing is that if all the parameters are set in advance, it is no longer necessary to re-enter the values, to avoid inputting wrong data information. The powerful functions and advantages of JDF applied in the post-press field are reflected in the following aspects.
Customers can keep track of production through JDF
JDF is a sweeping, developing, dynamic information. It can gather execution information and step information. It can find data from the control center at any time and provide customers with the information they need at any time. For example: production schedules for printed products, production schedules and cost accounting become more accurate. And customers can always know the information he needs, which makes the relationship between printing companies and customers more closely.
However, to some extent, some functions of JDF cannot be fully applied in the fields of post-press processing and other process networking. Different companies all over the world are frantically trying to add JDF's design concepts in the design concept of horse-riding, paper cutters, and bookbinding machines.
Among them, Scenic Software's UpFront software puts a key element in the workflow of JDF. It can arrange how the products to be printed are printed on the machine and how to make the folding machine and the binding production line obtain the full-page printing data information. The PPF (print production format), which is the definition of the workflow for integrating upstream and downstream supply chains, is also known as the "print production format" and is well applied in the software.
Paul Verwilt of Scenic Software's Belgium office stated that PPE print production formats can be applied to post-press equipment such as cutting machines, pagers, and saddle stitchers. Some of our customers will use UpFront software and Martini's Amrys control system. The connection, and we have also linked it with a horse-riding binding machine in Heidelberg, we have tested it: When we are testing with a US customer, we can feel that the production time has been significantly shortened.
Martini uses Amrys to store and set up post-press production lines that are ideally suited to JDF. When printing companies receive repetitive printing tasks such as magazines or books in standard formats, the system can effectively reduce preparation time. Especially in the case of short-run printing, the gutter requires frequent downtime for preparation, and the system can realize automatic fund accumulation. Ma Tiankun believes that when there are conversions of more than three tasks in each link, it can be considered that paying for the facility is very worthwhile.
Application of JDF in Digital Printing
In the field of highly automated digital printing, there are often many different tasks to be done within one hour. Therefore, talking about the waste of paper between two printing jobs is already a commonplace problem; especially in the traditional post-press processing line, it will waste more prints to get the final product.
How to reduce waste is a concern for many digital printing companies? The use of digital workflows is much less than that of traditional post-press production lines and waste can be minimized. Therefore, the functions of the traditional post-press processing, which are implemented by different machines, are concentrated on a digital printing machine, making it possible to produce brochures, spiral bound books or even soft-surface binding books, which has become one of the pressing needs of the current market. It is also one of the most concerned issues for postpress equipment suppliers.
To break this traditional way of postpress production, and to establish a new postpress production process requires a process; especially to integrate prepress, print, and postpress for the unified effective line requires a time shift. This means that digital presses need more than just sophisticated, professional digital printing equipment. It also requires digital post-press production equipment that can be matched with digital presses. The Swiss manufacturer HUKELER has been in the leading position in this field in recent years. Over the years, it has been committed to providing customers with increasingly sophisticated system solutions that can reflect the influence of digital products.
Before the advent of digital printing, there was almost no need to add automatic control devices to the post-press processing system. Because of the long production cycle, there was little power to drive post-press processing more efficiently. Because there are some natural errors in the post-press production process, we often need to use tools to make some minor adjustments to the post-press equipment. This will certainly waste a lot of time. In order to increase production efficiency and meet market demands, digital printing, especially personalized digital printing, ensures that the whole is of vital importance. Therefore, replacing the experimental and erroneous methods with automatic devices allows the operation to maintain very high accuracy at the beginning, which is very important for digital printing.
Hunkerler does not do all the work on his own. In Japan, Horizon and Screens have jointly developed the JDF interface between the booklet maker and the binding machine for prepress and Horizon. The i2i program developed by the company has made the CIP4 standard interface, so that any department of the networked machines can be controlled by a total console. Such a skilled operator can start the machine and monitor the overall production process of the print job, which can reduce a lot of loading and unloading work. In this way, only a skilled operator is required to control and operate all the production equipment. Unskilled operators can do some common installation and unloading work, which greatly improves printing efficiency and saves printing costs.
JDF is more widely applicable
JDF usually represents a complete concept, such as a fully integrated post-press production line, not at the expense of a post-press processing link. Instead, JDF helps customers solve problems by providing a complete post-press finishing solution.
Horizon has expanded the traditional core business of its small-scale systems and is developing to develop systems that use more large-scale equipment. This means that the company has changed the perspective of the problem, the company has begun to produce new equipment systems to challenge the traditional concepts of the past, such as in the traditional today, how or how should the binding machine operation, and now the binding machine should be What does it look like? The impact of the new design concept of this postpress facility on the postpress industry is like the impact of CTP technology on the prepress industry.
Advanced post-press processing equipment has gradually replaced a lot of manual repetitive operations, which has brought about rapid development in productivity. This has also promoted the introduction of some post-press equipment by some printing plants. The increasing market demand requires that post-press equipment be automated, because manual operations are relatively error-prone. In particular, stacking machines and shrink packaging machines need to reduce manual operations to reduce the number of employees in the workshop. The most important thing is that automated production equipment can ensure that products are sent to the next production process in a timely manner.
Heidelberg Prinect Workflow
Many vendors can only respond to a certain part of their workflow with their products, so they must conduct interoperability testing with products supplied by other companies. Heidelberg offers a series from prepress to postpress. The current work focus is to debug the entire product line according to the JDF workflow, and then link and debug with other company's products. The situation in this area has been reported frequently.
Heidelberg's Prinect JDF workflow connects all jobs. It can be quickly installed on the ST400 saddle stitcher and Stansl folder. For a paper cutter, if it can be connected to a Prinect network, the recommended solution is compucut—an unconnected console connected to the paper cutter and then connected to Prinect and Prinance—the MIS application. These processes are carried out under the control of postpress information systems. The system server accesses the data needed for the next process, and the required settings are loaded at the same time. The waste of all work and the number of actual work will be fed back to the MIS for more precise cost calculation and production control.
Heidelberg's ST400 rider can provide a complete, accurate and complete production process. The ST400 rider can start working within two minutes of receiving the data. The difference is that it is not only effective in receiving data. ST400 Riding on the king has also made great progress in technical design. The Rider King ST400 uses a servo engine for moving position settings and can directly drive operation, and digital control frees the saddle stitcher from the constraints of the drive shaft. This technology is currently widely used, especially in the application of web printing presses. With this concept, other similar technologies can be applied as needed.
The Stahl folder gradually adapts to this technology, and its server can repair deformed plates and print thicker paper. The correctness of this concept has been explained and Heidelberg needs to extend this concept to other postpress systems.
Other considerations about this application are also very extensive, and this number will continue to grow. It's just that you can find it when you need it. From the perspective of reducing waste, operators can make decisions that only produce a single page, and the machine's response is also very sensitive.
Obedience is the key
Obedience is the key to the future development of post-press processing technology. Obey JDF's instructions, obey the need for short preparation time and zero waste. Applying these post-press systems to digital printing and long-term commercial printing is not a problem, because the needs are the same.
Reproduced from: Wins
Guangzhou Huan Yu Clocking Technologies Co., Ltd. , http://www.mid-clock.com