At the eleven-day drupa trade fair at the end of May, UV systems manufacturer IST METZ will be displaying its products for the printing industry on a stand extending to 400 m². Both UV lamps and UV LED systems will be on show on Stand B10 in Hall 2 and it will also be possible to see them in action.
IST METZ will be showing the practical application of its UV systems on a sheet-fed offset printing press on its stand. With six colour decks and one varnish drive, it is a proud 14 m long, 4 metres wide, 2 metres tall - and weighs around 42 tonnes. “To put a press on the stand involves a huge organizational and technical challenge every time, but it’s worth it - nobody except the large printing press manufacturers does that”, says Christian-Marius Metz, taking part in this year’s drupa in his role as Managing Director for the first time. Together with Holger Kühn and Dr. Robert Sänger, he took charge of IST METZ GmbH at the end of last year.
The press will run a printing demonstration four times a day. It will be producing a printed product developed by IST METZ especially for the trade fair, glasses which can be used to view the virtual printing and drying process on a smartphone. “Virtual reality is currently a significant trend which Google and Samsung, for example, are pushing hard. We see this as a good opportunity to show our UV units in action – it would be dangerous to the eyes to do this any other way because of the extremely large quantity of light”, says Christian-Marius Metz.
In lighting technology, LEDs now have the edge over energy-saving bulbs and have therefore become accepted in many households. But LEDs are also gaining ground in other sectors of industry, such as UV technology, for example. The focus of IST METZ’s exhibition at the trade fair is therefore the use of LED UV systems in sheet-fed, web-fed, narrow-web and digital printing. However, there is no chance of the classic UV lamp, which looks similar to a neon tube, being superseded. It is far more the case that the use of UV light generated by special UV LEDs is becoming established in certain spheres of application. “The very particular benefits of UV technology come into play here: dry in just seconds, processing can continue immediately, significantly reduced spoilage”, says Holger Kühn, Managing Director Sales at IST METZ GmbH. “UV LED technology is especially suitable for 4C printing without complex finishing effects. We have been doing our homework in this area over the past few years, and are in a position to offer our customers unrivalled high-performance systems.”
The IST METZ group of companies turned over € 73 million in 2015. Around 300 people are employed at the company’s headquarters in Nürtingen-Zizishausen; if the ten subsidiaries abroad are included, there is a total of around 500 members of staff. In collaboration with its subsidiary Integration Technology Ltd., which has specialized in digital printing products, IST METZ GmbH offers the world’s largest portfolio of UV systems for drying inks and varnishes using UV light.