New Press(es) Time

[tonypep]

I've run shops with both scenarios and honestly say one brand has the most benefits; whenever its possible to do so. Some other things to consider: Image limits and placement of graphics on screen for one. Direction of print stroke another. Even within brands this can change and can affect scheduling when hiccups occur. Screens imaged for one press may not necessarily be imaged correctly for another; resulting in less flexibility. Then there are the ops. While some may be a whiz bang on one machine they often cannot quite get the hang of another, requiring excessive training on occaision.
Then theres parts compatability; often convenient when trouble shooting. In some instances parts may be swapped out when troubleshooting.
Our presses are all of one brand and ramge from 6 to 14 colors. While all are fully staffed with a 3 person crew, all ops can easily move from one press to another. Then theres the pallets and flashes etc mentioned above.

[ebscreen]

All good points Tony, hadn't even thought of the parts issue. Being able to swap "known working" parts makes diagnosis easy.
Been lucky to have two of the exact same presses I guess.

Might be nice to have a chart showing what is compatible with what. IE Anatol/M&R/Workhorse all use same squeegees/pallets/image placement. (?)
I don't think MHM uses the same anything as anyone else, even image placement.

[BorisB]

The 3000/4000 pallets are much larger than the S-Types, nothing can be done there as far as I know.



What would your ideal 2 auto shop be?

MHM 4000 16/18 + MHM S 12/14

[tonypep]

On a much larger scale, by the time I showed up at Jerry Klaus's Oats he just landed 9 new 14 color Challengers. They ran 24 hrs a day and were absolutely exactly identical. At one point we used one strictly for training and once certified any op could run any press on any shift. Pretty saavy of him. Same with Fortune Fashions except they traded out a mish mash of equipment for all Tas machines.

[244]

On a much larger scale, by the time I showed up at Jerry Klaus's Oats he just landed 9 new 14 color Challengers. They ran 24 hrs a day and were absolutely exactly identical. At one point we used one strictly for training and once certified any op could run any press on any shift. Pretty saavy of him. Same with Fortune Fashions except they traded out a mish mash of equipment for all Tas machines.

And then switched the entire shop to M&R. Had to help you finish!

[ebscreen]

Mr. M&R, which flashes/presses have temp sensing technology? From what I can tell
looks like Cayenne and CH3 only?

Brings me to another point, honeycomb pallets. You either love them or hate them but I do both.
Your only option with MHM/SRoque, and flash temps are vedy vedy importante with them.

[tonypep]

And I got to be there for the dreaded Elexon experiment. YAY!!!!!

[244]

Mr. M&R, which flashes/presses have temp sensing technology? From what I can tell
looks like Cayenne and CH3 only?

Brings me to another point, honeycomb pallets. You either love them or hate them but I do both.
Your only option with MHM/SRoque, and flash temps are vedy vedy importante with them.

We produce two flashes models in seven sizes that have temperature sensors. The Cayenne D and the Red Chili D. Both flash models work on all our presses.

[bimmridder]

Just my two cents worth. I like everything idiot proof. We're just rag printers. All  three of my autos are the same brand, Everything interchangeable. Any job will run on any press. Juggling 40 jobs a shift in busy season is a hell of a lot easier when we have that flexibility. Too many variable for us to schedule jobs to a certain press. One mistake and you scramble. Now we just move the next job in.

[ZooCity]

Man, from the sound of this press, I'd just grab it and go.  Sounds like an MHM shop's wet dream.  Congrats in advance!

If floods and sq are interchangeable, purchasing additional platens doesn't seem too bad and, hey, you never know when both presses will need to run sleeves all day for some reason. 

What I wouldn't do is use presses with different image placements, kills your scheduling flexibility and could really harsh your  mellow if it required an FPU adjustment between the two. 

I think you can deal with some incompatibility when it's two presses, but with three or more having nearly identical machines that share common parts starts to sound really, really good, especially with those metric parts.  Also, one tech visit can cover all your presses. 

[GaryG]

Back then for a company as a production coordinator almost went with 3 Elexon's.
They were looking very good at the time, but 2 Saturn's and an Eclipse was the ticket, whew!