Toray Industries Inc., a leading
manufacturer of waterless offset plate technology, invited customers from the
European newspaper industry and representatives of the trade press to jointly
celebrate its Open House event on 24 September at the new state-of-the-art
plant in Prost?jov (Czech Republic): “We firmly believe in the future of
waterless printing and the future of print.”
“We built this new facility in
order to meet the growing global demand for waterless printing plates and to
better serve Europe, the Middle East and the Americas,” explained Takayuki
Kamei, director of the graphics division at Toray Textiles Central Europe
(TTCE), to his visitors. Waterless printing plates are part of what Toray
considers its ‘Strategically Expanding Businesses’ that drive revenue and
profit growth. Indeed, since 2005, sales and turnover for the printing plates
have increased fivefold and the Toray market share is growing year over year.
Driver for growth
The European region is an
important driver for the growth of Toray’s waterless printing plates business.
Especially the successful introduction of the waterless Cortina web press by
KBA in 2004 – which now has 19 installations with a total of 85 print towers
across Europe and the Middle East – boosted sales of the Toray plates, as no
other manufacturer provides waterless printing plates for this segment.
Toray choose its existing
TTCE-site at Prost?jov - in the heart of Europe - for a 6,000 sqm new building
to facilitate its new plate manufacturing location. The 140 meters long
production line now produces waterless printing plates – from the aluminium
coils, through washing, coating and laminating, up to cutting the finished
products - that exactly match the high quality standards from the manufacturing
plant in Japan.
Visitors to the Open House were
given the unique opportunity to tour the facilities and take a close look at
the highly automated production process, and also at the final manual
inspection taking place to ensure quality. According to Mitsunori Hayashi,
general manager for sales in the graphic materials department at TTCE, it is
exactly this highly complicated production process that sets Toray apart from
any competition: “Stability and reliability in production are the most
difficult parts of what we do here.”
More than 50 per cent of all
plates produced at the TTCE-site are tailored for the Cortina-presses installed
in Europe and Dubai. Waterless printing offers these printers many advantages:
it is an environmentally friendly printing process that delivers higher quality
and reduces waste. Also, it increases the productivity of newspaper and
semi-commercial printing operations, as Mitsunori Hayashi explained: “Printers
that only print newspapers will face a difficult future, as that market
continues to decline in Europe. However, the KBA Cortina and Toray plates offer
printers the opportunity to produce semi-commercial jobs as well. This allows
them to utilize their presses much better, by printing newspapers at night and
producing high quality brochures, supplements or magazines on improved paper
stock during the day. In that way, they can expand their portfolio and their
customer base.”
‘Reinvent print’ at WAN-IFRA Expo
“Newspapers need to change their
game. They should stop chasing the news and instead become the new ‘weekly’, on
a daily basis.” Toray treated its visitors to the Open House on an inspiring
and thought-provoking presentation by Samir Husni from the USA, also widely
known as ‘Mr. Magazine’. He urges publishers and printers to make print ‘necessary
and relevant’ again: “We have to reinvent print”. And that, Mitsunori Hayashi
says, is exactly what Toray is supporting printers to do: “If the good
attendance at our September Open House for the new facility is any indication,
we can expect to see even more interest at the WAN-IFRA World Publishing Expo
2014.”
“We encourage show attendees to
stop by our booth (Stand 11.565),” Hayashi concludes. “Customer stories, advice
from our experts and our showcase of a variety of product possibilities
waterless offset printing affords adopters of the technology, will help
visitors gain the facts they need when considering making a waterless printing
decision. We expect it to be a busy and exciting show.”
For more information on the Expo
and Toray’s participation, please click www.toray-intl.com and
www.waterless-print.com/en/
