SMART-Flap produces unusual index tabs in newsprint supplements

Druckerei Konstanz in southern Germany which belongs to Südkurier Medienhaus has often scored points with trade juries and ad customers for its creative newspaper supplements.

The newspaper from the Lake Constance region won first prize at the German Printing Industry's Innovation Awards 2011 for a remarkable brochure for a Swiss bag manufacturer in the category printed advertising.

This year Druckerei Konstanz started a campaign under the banner "We are SMART!" to promote its image as a service provider towards customers and the general public. SMART stands for nine goals: ecological, flexible, innovative, sustainable, vividly colored, detailed, fast, service-orientated and unique. The printing house developed nine new products for the new SMART portfolio which are designed to meet these goals. These include SMART-News, SMART-Out and SMART-Flap.

The beauty of the SMART-Flap is its unusual index tabs for a newsprint supplement. By processing two webs in different special widths and a staggered fold, the first four pages are narrower than the following pages. The two visible 3cm-wide tabs on the right-hand edge offer various categorization and additional ad options.

Smart printing with the KBA Cortina:
Along with the daily Südkurier and a lot of other print media, the newly developed SMART products are also printed environmentally friendly in waterless offset on a triple-wide compact KBA Cortina web press. The first SMART-Flap was printed for Autowelt Schuler.

Web widths of 590mm (23.2in) and 560mm (22in) were used instead of 630mm (24.8in) in straight production, which only required a software change at the reelstands. Along with the print quality, the SMART-Flap takes full advantage of the KBA Cortina's technological benefits:

• The flap width is completely variable thanks to the keyless inking unit and it can be designed according to customer requirements.
• No smearing or toning on the substrate overlapping the print-free areas.
• No pollution from "spraying" on the print-free areas in the printing unit (even with large print runs).
• No inking fluctuations and no color emulsification due to the absence of ink-key overlaps.
• No dampeners and therefore no parameter changes necessary.
• Many different product types (ad forms/formats) possible.

Outstanding customer response
Autowelt Schuler, the first user of the new SMART-Flap supplement, was extremely happy with the result and the positive response it received.

Sales manager Daniel Beyer said: "The product was a bull's eye for Autowelt Schuler. We have received a great deal of interest as a result of the SMART-Flap and we have used it as a basis for boosting our talks and sales campaigns. We have also received positive feedback from our business partners, trader colleagues and from VW marketing. It was a pleasure to implement this innovative concept with SÜDKURIER Medienhaus and Druckerei Konstanz."

Michael Schäfer, managing director at Druckerei Konstanz, was also very impressed with the finished result: "This extraordinary, eye-catching ad form can be produced highly efficiently as it is made in one press pass. The keyless inking unit in our KBA Cortina creates the ideal requirements for processing any web widths and producing extraordinary ad forms for the newspaper industry."