Southern German print and publishing group Bechtle is upgrading catalogue capacity with a new manroland Rotoman heatset web.

Based in Esslingen, the 146-year-old group’s Bechtle Druck & Service print business is replacing a 1998 press of the same model range, and has a 2001 Rotoman competing with sheetfed for work such as annual reports.

Newspaper division Bechtle Verlag & Druck prints the Esslinger Zeitung plus freesheets and newspapers on Colorman and Geoman presses.

The new five-unit Rotoman DirectDrive will go into production in the second half of 2015. It will have a web width of 965 mm, the maker’s autoprint functionality, and print at up to 65,000 cylinder revolutions per hour. The fifth printing unit allows fully automatic version and signature change as well as finishing options such as varnishing and spot colour. A second cross fold will produce double parallel, and an integrated cutting device enables production of 4x4 pages and 2x8 pages with gripper fold and high lap.