Hofmann Druck Nürnberg GmbH & Co. KG is expanding its printing capacities and installing Europe’s first Speedmaster XL 106 with innovative DryStar LED dryer technology at the start of 2016. The eight-color perfecting press is from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) and will be used alongside an LED press from another manufacturer that is already being run in the pressroom.

Hofmann Druck is a full-service print shop in the web and sheetfed sector that produces primarily high-end magazines and catalogs for exacting customers. The company is part of the Hofmann Infocom GmbH group, which has a workforce of 150 and provides more than 400 customers with media services in the printing and electronic publications sectors.

“Our experience with LED has been great in terms of quality, productivity, extremely short delivery times, and excellent energy efficiency. By installing the new Speedmaster XL 106 LED, we are pursuing our goal of switching over 100% of our sheetfed operations to this pioneering technology,” says Ralf Büttner, Sales Director at Hofmann Infocom. The current LED press has already produced more than 30 million prints in just under one year. There is still a five-color Speedmaster XL 105 with coating unit in the pressroom, but this is to be removed when the new press is installed. “We have been impressed by the technical performance of XL technology and think it is a great press, in terms of its overall concept and its integration features,” says Büttner. “We want to continue building on our technology leadership in LED printing, which is why we have deliberately chosen two suppliers, so that we can benefit from the developments of both.”

The benefits of LED are particularly striking on uncoated papers, ensuring that neither the brilliance and luminescence of the inks nor the feel are lost. That is why the company has launched a specialist brand “Hofmann LED Brilliance Technology”. “We are focusing on premium quality in sheetfed offset. We can now offer products and services that we previously would have had difficulty achieving, such as art prints,” says Büttner. “We have already won new customers and will continue to pursue this growth with the new Speedmaster XL 106 LED.”

Heidelberg has been offering LED presses in Asia since 2013 and has already installed more than 20 presses in Japan. Japan was the first LED market for Heidelberg due to the country’s very stringent legal regulations that apply to energy savings. Using the expertise it has gained there, and the positive feedback from users, the company launched the technology onto the European market in fall 2015. The system will be introduced in the USA and Canada at the end of this year.