A new finishing line which merges inkjet and offset webs creates an interesting option for newspaper publishers.

The system from Vits International - which combines two (or potentially more) webs in registration for further processing - is to be shown at the DRUPA trade show at the end of May.

The configuration offers an alternative to (slower) all-digital newspaper production, imprinting typically limited by printhead width, and the possibility of full-width printheads on a conventional newspaper press.

At DRUPA, Vits says it will intermix preprinted rolls from inkjet and offset to produce a 12-page retail flyer, allowing users to leverage the best of both applications - the personalisation of inkjet with the economies offered by web-offset.

Sales sales and marketing director Nick Gerovac says the ability to precisely register multiple webs presents a new twist on finishing for flyers, brochures, publications, direct mail and newspapers.

The system uses drive and control technology from Bosch Rexroth for both its inline systems and for the new Sprint system to combine multiple webs into a single finished signature or book. Modular, independently-driven components are controlled by a central IndraMotion MLC motion control platform, handling as many as 30 driven axes.

In the offline multi-web system, multiple paper rolls are mounted on register splicers which feed the web continuously to the Vits infeed, through an angle bar system that slits it in half and repositions one half over the other, before travelling to a ribbon-gathering station and over a folder element to fold the ribbons in half.

Once the fold is complete, the web travels through a shear-slitting module where the folded web can be trimmed, and then taken into the variable data rotary cutter which cuts each page to size and collates/stacks the finished product for the next process.

Vits will also have a Multicut variable servo sheeter inline on a Prosper 6000 inkjet web on the Kodak stand during DRUPA.

Peter Coleman