Benny Landa sharing his story and vision, with Landa CEO Yishai Amir
In front of some 150 potential customers (and a few lucky journalists) Benny Landa and his team finally got to show off the first digital Nanographic press installation, reports Sean Smyth.
Over two days the company opened the covers and provided a very deep dive into the details of the technology, the issues they have solved and a roadmap into the future.
There was a fascinating look into some of the new technologies Landa Labs is developing – from generating electricity from thermal methods and solar cells, for hair colouring, automotive pigments, new sun-block cosmetics, alternatives to foiling, new coating techniques and even making artificial diamonds through a spin-off company, Lusix (sadly no samples were provided).
But the main objective was to explore the new presses. Graphica Bezalel is the first user. They took delivery in July and after a five-week installation the S10 press is producing cartons alongside Komori, Roland and Mitsubishi sheet-fed litho machines. The company was a “digital virgin”, but has a great set of plans to utilise the machine to offer new products and services to large and small companies. The next installations will be at Edelmann, a carton producer in Germany and Imagine!, a commercial operation in Minneapolis St Paul in the USA. The latter serves the retail sector and will be using the machine to re-engineer display and signage supply chains by offering more versioning to make signage more relevant to the individual stores. One customer has 580 stores and 530 potential variations which can be efficiently produced by the large format digital press.
The press technology has been refined, with the integration of the AQM (active quality management) to control registration and provide full real-time closed-loop control of colour via a spectrophotometer, and of print defects through a high-resolution camera system, to compensate for missing nozzles.
Landa CEO Yishai Amir provided details of the activities behind the scenes that are taking place as the company scales up to support the launch. There will be innovations in press management and training as well as support, with 3D augmented reality goggles enabling operators to handle new maintenance operations for the first time, guided by remote on-line support staff. The declared aim is to ensure the presses run consistently, all the time with consistent output. There have been many non-believers doubting that the technology would make it to market. The first machine is the S10, a B1 sheetfed machine printing in simplex mode at 6500 sheets per hour. This will be followed by a duplexing model, with more colours and higher speeds planned over the next few years, together with a 1.03m print width version for flexible packaging and a twin-engined version for publishing and commercial applications to follow.
And yes, it is real!
