Graphic arts trade association Printing Industries of America (PIA) has awarded Heidelberg’s Prinect Press Center XL 2 with Wallscreen XL and Intellistart 2 and the Gallus Labelfire 340 with the InterTech Technology Award for 2017. Heidelberg is now honored with its 37th and 38th star for outstanding and innovative products.

“The InterTech Awards are an important acknowledgment underlining Heidelberg’s leading position in both digital printing technology as well as the digitization of the entire print shop operation,” says Ulrich Hermann, member of Heidelberg’s management board responsible for Digital Business and Services.

Both products were presented for the first time at last year’s drupa – demonstrating innovations in productivity for offset printing and new applications in label production. The InterTech jury agreed that the Prinect Press Center XL 2 with Wallscreen XL and Intellistart 2 software represents a breakthrough in terms of the digitization of offset print production.

The Gallus Labelfire realized an outstanding engineering achievement by introducing industrialized digital print production into the label market, one of the graphic arts industry’s biggest growth segments.

Paradigm shift
For the first time in the history of offset printing, the Prinect Press Center XL 2 with Wallscreen XL and Intellistart 2 enables the press to execute consecutive job changes fully autonomously without any operator intervention. This provides game changing productivity boosts for commercial and web-to-print customers. Heidelberg’s patented Intellistart 2 is the key enabling component, combining data analytics, mechanical design and intelligent software, including color measurement systems that define and execute the fastest changeover sequence possible. The automatic processes are parallelized, optimized and autonomously completed in the ideal sequence.

“The judges were unanimous in their conviction that this level of autonomous operation signals a brave new future in print manufacturing,” said Jim Workman, vice president of Printing Industries of America’s Center for Research and Technology.

Gallus Labelfire enables industrial digital converting
The Gallus Labelfire addresses the growing demand for cost-effective production of short, medium, versioned and variable data label runs. The system combines state-of-the-art inkjet printing heads with the benefits of conventional printing and various inline processing possibilities. It enables label printers to varnish, embellish and further process labels inline – from the roll to the finished diecut label in a single production operation. By launching this new technology, Heidelberg and Gallus are actively shaping business models in the label segment, offering users a versatile, innovative and cost-effective solution.

“The press innovatively combines inkjet printing, flexo printing, embellishing, and converting; the judges could see the impact of a press that can do it all in a single pass,” says Workman.

Printing Industries of America first presented the InterTech Technology Award in 1978. Each year, the association recognizes print media innovations in a variety of categories. Heidelberg has received over 35 of all the awards presented over the years for various prepress, press, and postpress technologies.