High-precision series production - the Heidelberg production network at Amstetten, Brandenburg, and Wiesloch-Walldorf. Offset printing systems are like gigantic mechanical and electronic clockwork mechanisms consisting of 100,000 parts with accuracy requirements down to one thousandth of a millimeter.
Printed matter provides information and communication and is an everyday medium enhancing education and quality of life. This can take the form of a car brochure, mineral water label, picture book, encyclopedia or packaging for cornflakes, creams, etc. On each working day, around 60 billion A4 pages - excluding newspapers - are printed throughout the world.
Over 70 percent of all the world's printed matter is produced in offset. Offset is the most advanced printing process in quality and production terms and the most cost-effective for runs from approx. 500 to more than 500,000 copies. The market volume for presses in the print media industry is just under five billion Euro in sheetfed offset and around one billion Euro in commercial web offset. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG is the world market leader in the sheetfed offset segment, with a share of over 40 percent.
Offset technology, developed around 100 years ago, uses ink dots on a scale of hundredths of a millimeter consisting of the primary colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black that need to be accurately positioned above and next to each other. However, the human eye is highly sensitive. If the ink dots are not positioned exactly in the screen configuration, this is immediately perceived as a color deviation and fuzziness.
Process colors are applied one after the other in the offset press. For each color, a printing unit and printing plate are required, from which the print image is reproduced. The demands made on the stability and precision of the press to achieve this are enormous, as the ink dots need to be positioned exactly, even after the eighth printing unit, at a speed of 15,000 or 18,000 sheets per hour. The fragility of ultra-thin paper and the bulkiness of card also need to be overcome.
Production tolerances - one thousandth of a millimeter, one sixtieth of a hair
These precision and quality requirements for operating an offset press are secondary, however, to the requirements for developing and constructing such print systems. A Heidelberg press is a high-tech device consisting of up to 100,000 parts and components. These are augmented by high-performance software for controlling up to 600 individual drive axes and up to 300 pneumatic parts. The cast iron offers stability. Tolerances down to thousandths of a millimeter - one sixtieth of a human hair - and the precise interaction of the mechanical and electronic parts accurate to within a millisecond ensure the precision that is needed. At the end of a mechanical engineering production process, up to 50 tons of cast iron and electronics need to work more precisely than a Swiss watch.
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