Grafiche Pizzi (Milan), which specializes in printed products for the pharmaceutical industry, in the last four years alone has invested more than €15 million in Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) solutions in both the press and postpress segments.
The latest addition is a new Speedmaster XL 106 two-color press with perfecting, equipped with the 400th CutStar roll sheeter.
“We took over the company in 2013, and our mission is sustainable growth,” Managing Director Paola Pantaleoni said.
The new Speedmaster XL 106 features the company’s third CutStar, and joins a Speedmaster XL 106-6+L and Speedmaster XL 106-4-P in the pressroom.
These two presses are also equipped with a CutStar, and have been in use since spring 2019.
“The biggest benefit CutStar offers us is the high level of flexibility when using lower paper grammages than in the past. We now process lightweight papers with 32 g/m2 compared with the 40-70 g/m2 paper normally used. Another plus point is the ability to optimize paper consumption by trimming the paper to the necessary formats, which reduces waste,” Pantaleoni said. “The new Speedmaster, which prints at a speed of 18,000 sheets per hour and is equipped with CutStar, and the connection to prepress with the Prinect workflow and Polar cutting systems have significantly increased our production capacity.”
The company was established in 1911 has operated exclusively in the pharmaceuticals segment for over 50 years, producing packaging inserts, brochures, and folding cartons.
In 2013, it extended its production area of 3,000 square meters to over 10,000 square meters.
Today, the 110-strong workforce produces 800 million inserts, five million brochures, and 100 million cartons each year. Grafiche Pizzi’s main markets are Italy, Switzerland, France, and Germany.
“With the CutStar, we offer industrialized markets the ability to combine the lower costs of roll-fed stock and the flexibility of sheetfed offset printing with the shortest makeready times, and in this way achieve high productivity,” says Rainer Wolf, head of Sheetfed Product Management at Heidelberg. “We are therefore continuing to invest in this important technology, and will be presenting an enhancement to it in the near future.”