Konron Printing, a commercial and publication printer headquartered in Wakaba-ku, Chiba Prefecture, recently took delivery of an eight-color (four over four) Mitsubishi DIAMOND 3000TP. The Tandem Perfector joins five other sheet-fed offset presses operated by Konron Printing, including two Mitsubishi four-color size 1 presses, one Mitsubishi four-color size 3 press, and one two-color size 4 press. The company also houses a complete prepress department with plate-making facilities, along with folding and finishing equipment in its postpress department.

The new Tandem Perfector at Konron Printing is designed for UV printing and features Mitsubishi’s newly developed simultaneous plate changing system – the SimulChanger, which drew enormous interest during its Japanese debut earlier in the year at IGAS. Mitsubishi, together with Konron Printing, hosted an Open House on December 12, 2007 to showcase the Tandem Perfector and Konron Printing’s new Toke Plant in Chiba, built exclusively to house the new press.

The Open House got underway at 2 p.m. with welcoming remarks by Katsumi Murayama, President of Konron Printing, and Tomoo Muraoka, Senior Sales Executive for Mitsubishi presses in Japan. The more than 120 visitors on hand for the event representing 50 of Japan’s leading printing houses, were then provided detailed presentations on UV Tandem Perfector printing and on the SimulChanger by Mitsubishi technical engineers.

Following the presentations, visitors moved to the press where they witnessed live press demos of UV perfector printing of posters on thin stock of 0.09 mm and calendar images on 0.3 mm stock. The job changeover was aided by use of the Mitsubishi SimulChanger.

The advantage of UV printing on perfecting presses is not limited only to the super-quick product delivery resulting from the quick ink-curing process, but also includes a higher degree of quality between front side and reverse side colors through the elimination of ceramic jackets on the normally required printing units.

Moreover, equipped with SimulChanger, the time required for old plate removal and new plate wrap-up is only about 38 seconds regardless of the number of printing units involved. The complete plate-changing process, including plate cylinder phase adjustments required for the simultaneous plate changes, takes no more than 75 seconds. At the Open House, visitors were quick to praise the eight-minute changeover process that was witnessed from printing completion on the first job to test printing of the second.

Mitsubishi welcomes these valuable opportunities to receive user and visitor feedback on press equipment and continues to apply recommendations made in its development of new products offerings to better meet customers’ changing requirements.