Central and eastern Europe printer EDS has opted for a 48-page manroland Lithoman S press for its Severotisk print site.

Founded in 1992, the organisation has eight sites in Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Romania with 18 manroland presslines.

The Lithoman S will focus on magazine production, increasing productivity of the plant in Usti nad Labem, Czech Republic. EDS has also signed a long-term "single-source service contract with manroland web systems.

The short-grain, sleeve technology press has a maximum production speed of 65,000 cylinder revolutions/hour and includes automation features including APL fully automatic plate change and manroland's inline systems for ink density, dynamic cut-off register and colour register.

Vladimir Hranicka, managing director of the Severotisk and Svoboda Press sites says the new press is "another milestone" for a long-term partnership: "For us it is an important step towards strengthening and further developing our leading market position in central and eastern Europe."

The two have been involved in a number of projects including press relocations, upgrades and retrofits.

Pictured at the contract signing are (from left) Milan Cerny (Severotisk finance director), Sixten Zapf (manroland), Jaroslav Sukdol (Severotisk technical director), Vladimir Hranicka, Josef Aumiller (manroland) and Luboslav Kovacik (manroland Czech Republic)