As we wrote in our July issue, the Paper and Printing Machinery Division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is part of a conglomerate As we wrote in our July issue, the Paper and Printing Machinery Division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is part of a conglomerate making everything from beer to cars to cameras. However, it is also the largest offset press manufacturer in Japan. Apart from modern automated sheetfed presses in all configurations, it is the only manufacturer in the world that makes three types of sheetfed perfectors – the long convertible perfectors, the stack type that are popular in Japan, and its unique tandem perfector. We wrote about these in our July issue.

Mitsubishi, MAN Roland, and KBA are the only three manufacturers in the world that manufacture sheetfed, and web-fed heatset and coldset offset presses. Of these three, Mitsubishi's printing press business is perhaps the smallest and least known. It is also one of the youngest since the printing press division was started up in 1962 with designs from Marinoni.

Diamond 16 Max V
Mitsubishi at its integrated plant in Mihara near Hiroshima makes commercial heatset webs including the new variable cut-off Diamond 16 Max V press that contains a mechanical arm for removing and putting in cylinder sleeves that can change the plate and blanket cylinder diameters. The design works in coordination with a folder that can vary the cut-off length by combining the folding system with a variable speed belt. Thus unlike some of the other variable press designs, the folder is changed automatically with only one manual setting.

The Diamond 16 Max V is available in any cutoff between 546 and 625 mm. As Koji Okubo, General Manager of the International Sales Division explained to us the basic idea of enabling the use of several plate and blanket circumference is that one press, “has to be cheaper than two conventional machines.” The 16 Max V has many advanced features including  cut-off change of all four printing unit's sleeves (8 colours) and folders in approximately 30 minutes.  The entire implementation of this futuristic but realistic and stable press design embodies the philosophy of low noise, low energy, and low waste.

Many other mechanical, software control, and design features in addition to the basic automation of the variable concept with the robotic arm changing the cylinder diameters and the folder cut-off being altered in situ, make the 16 Max V the most practical and ready for market variable cut-off press available. Customers are not merely “future proofing” their purchase, but can immediately buy the variable diameter sleeves that will allow them to run commercial work of many types without wastage. One 16 Max V has already been sold to a Japanese customer.

Non-sleeve presses are also available including the D16 MAX with double diameter blanket cylinder and the D16SSS with single diameter blanket cylinder. In addition there is the D16 MAX-M, a single diameter with metal backed blankets and pinless folder that can produce a 279.4 mm x 229 mm product using a 578 mm cut-off.

Newspaper presses
However, what makes Mitsubishi the heavy weight in the press industry is its DIAMONDSTAR double circumference double width press that runs at 90,000 impression an hour with as many as 96 pages in straight and 160 pages in collect runs. Since 2003, 40 DIAMONDSTAR presses have been installed mostly with five or six towers. Typically these would print 40 pages at a time with 16 or 24 in full colour or as many as 48 pages with 24 pages in full colour. On our visit to Mihara we were able to talk to Sales Director Takashi Uchiu and Sales Manager Toshiro Inoue of Mitsubishi who took us to the Wadaoki plant that houses the web press division across the small bay in Mihara where the presses are assembled and tested.

We saw one such complete DIAMONDSTAR press being tested by a major Japanese newspaper prior to delivery. Recent DIAMONDSTAR installs include the first one by a US publisher, the Community Newspaper Group — part of The Washington Post Co.-Newsweek Media Inc., which began commercial production in January of 2007.The installation at the new site in Laurel, Maryland has the capacity to print 96 broadsheet pages in collect runs with full process colour on all pages. Frank Abbott, group president of the Community Newspaper Group anticipates a 33 per cent reduction in makeready times on full-colour products, resulting in lower waste and increased press time.

DIAMONDSPACE
Mitsubishi's DIAMONDSPACE 75,000 impressions per hour quadruple-width double-circumference press, has been a workhorse in major newspapers around the world since 1981. Its large capacity has made it an early leader both in large configurations (as many as 45 printing couples in an installation in 1997) and in automation (robotic plate changer 1987; and shaftless in 1999). From 1996 to 1998 The Washington Post installed eight such presses, each with twelve reelstands and nine towers for printing 96 pages including 28 pages in full colour.

The Hindu moves from 2 x 2 to 4x1 DIAMONDSPRINT
In 1998, The Hindu in Chennai installed two double-width double-circumference Mitsubishi presses that it configured to its own needs with an oven and chiller for ROP colour and which were called the Asia M presses. More recently, The Hindu has become Mitsubishi's first customer of the 4 x 1 (four wide and one around) DIAMONDSPRINT presses that were initially installed at Hyderabad and now have been installed at the new plant in Maramalai Nagar near Chennai. We wrote about the Hyderabad 4 x 1 installations in our June issue and during the Ifra Expo in Chennai in September, a plant visit is being organised to see the new Maraimalai Nagar plant where two DIAMONDSPRINT lines are installed. Each of the lines is capable of printing 32 broadsheet pages with heat colour of 24 and 16 pages respectively.

The Mitsubishi DIAMONDSPRINT preses at The Hindu's Maraimalai plant are the fastest 4 x 1 presses in the world at 80,000 iph and the two lines include eight reelstands, five T44 tower units and two T22 tower units. The two lines include a total of five inline ovens with chillers and four 2:3:3 jaw folders with inline tabloid stitchers.

K Balaji, Director, Kasturi and Sons, publisher of The Hindu, recently showed us a full colour issue of the group's Sportstar magazine in a tabloid format that had come out of the press completely stitched and finished. He seemed quite satisfied at having achieved this technical tour de force.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and the Paper & Printing Machinery Division at Mihara

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries manufactures everything from air-conditioning to aerospace, and nuclear energy systems to transportation systems including ships. In the financial year from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007, MHI had consolidated sales of approximately 3,068.5 billion Yen. This translates to approximately US$ 26.8 billion or INR 110,000 crore.

The Paper and Printing Machinery Division of MHI had a turnover of approximately 114.6 billion yen, which would in approximation come to US$ 950 million or INR 3,900 crore.

The paper and printing machinery division is located in Mihara, about an hour away from Hiroshima by train and occupies three sites (Itohaki, Kohama, and Wadaoki) in an area of more than a million square meters and more than 250,000 square meters of built up space in fifteen groups of buildings not counting the gates.

Five types of machinery are made at the Paper and Printing Machinery Division at Mihara – sheetfed offset presses, commercial web offset presses, newspaper web offset presses, paper converting machinery, and pulp and paper machinery.

The Mihara plant was established in 1943 to manufacture steam locomotives and air brakes. In 1952 it made its first Fourdrinier and multi-dryer cylinder paper-making machine and in 1956 it began production of converting machinery. It started production of printing presses in 1962. Apart from seven research laboratories of MHI all over Japan, the Mihara site contains a sophisticated Paper and Printing Research Center whose findings are reviewed and applied as feasible in the manufacture of the company's printing presses. Naresh Khanna