New direct drive Roland for Kingston Carton

Hull-based packaging and folding carton company, Kingston Carton, has ordered a six-colour Roland 700 LV + coater with DirectDrive with a view to growing its market share in the competitive on-demand and micro-run sectors of the food and healthcare industries.

According to Arend Buitendam, managing director at Kingston Carton: ‘With greater demand for specialised packaging, quicker make-readies and shorter print runs, we needed a press to compete in this rapidly changing market.  manroland’s DirectDrive technology is extraordinary, and is clearly superior to the competition.  Today, even the smallest production enhancements make a big difference to profitability and efficiency, so the installation of technology like the DirectDrive is significant.’

The Roland 700 DirectDrive press is the world’s first offset litho press with an independent electronic drive on the plate cylinder and a patented double-clutch system.  This reduces make-ready times, making it ideal for short run productivity.  Plate changing is simultaneous on 2 to 12 printing units, while other make-ready functions are being performed, offering zero time plate changing.

Kingston’s new press includes manroland’s QuickChange Job, QuickChange Color and automated ink profiling.  It will join a Roland HiPrint 706 LV with UV and infrared drying, as well as manroland’s ColorPilot automatic on-press colour control solution. 

According to John Worsley of manroland GB:  ‘The Roland 700 DirectDrive offers 18,000 sheets/hour, a double-clutching system and simultaneous fully Automatic Plate Loading, ensuring zero time make-readies, which takes make-ready time out of the production equation.’