Throughput question on a Hiedleberg GTO 2 head

[caveboy]

I am having a firm discussion with my Production Manager. He is telling me the average throughput on a GTO is 3,000 sheets per hour max My question is..... On average, what is the expect `11"x17"sheet output of a 2 head GTO running a 2 color job or a black and white job including loading and unloading paper?.

[rbailleu]

a really good operator with long runs of 10000sheets can do 4000iph to 4500

any operator on short run work. less than 2000 sheets wont average 2000iph
especially if you do frequent stock changes or ink changes. if you run a lot of 60# offset or ncr you might do 3000iph. but nobody will end up running over 5500iph run speed on a regular basis unless you only run one stock and the same color all the time.

[acacia print]

Just to confirm that the previous contributors estimations are realistict. Shorter runs if less than 2000 will by their nature result in slower average speeds due to plate changes and extra setups etc. If these require numbering and perforations then the rate will drop again. However on longer runs you might get a 5,000+ average if all goes to plan.

Preloading can save time. I have seen some guys that will not do this to extend their "Productive" time in order to gain overtime. It is not professional behaviour and tantamount to theft of a companies time. At best it is lazyness.

[rbailleu]

you might get 5000iph on a gto in good condition with one setup and the same job for 8 hours on good paper under perfect conditions. while I am not the worlds best pressman, i could never keep a gto runing over 6000 iph registering well, feeding well and printing well at the same time. if I had 80# gloss cover I could but then you are loading and loading twice as often. 50 and 60# offset under good conditions maybe 6000 but never 7000iph. even with a preloading. your still stopping for atleast 60 seconds to get the paper in the feeder and the paper out of the delivery. and nobody does it that fast every time. so you are looking at loosing 2 to 3 minutes 2 times an hour. heaven forbid if you get a hickey there is 5 minutes.

anyway we always figured 3000iph on long runs of 15,000 or less. 4500iph on 50m runs. 2000iph on short run. 500 letter head, 1000 3part ncr. of course this is all average impressions per hour not run speed.
on a gto the runs are generally not 50,000 too often. those get bumped up to a 4 up machine.

we used to run the gto at 4500 iph unless there was a difficult stock. then you slow it down. and it never gets cranked back up right away. not untill the next decent job.

[acacia print]

rbailleu
I think you are right I was probably being a bit to optomistic and when you take into considderation all the little things that are needed to keep the press running flat out then the average will be lower than what I was imagining.

[rbailleu]

sorry to be contrarian, but the boss man needs as much info as he can. I guess my point is thats why we went to a sm52. blanket and cyl wash. autoplate. plate cocking. of course a year later we went ctp and that really helped. either way you pay for the automation in lost time or productivity gain. you may as well have the press and ctp. your pressman will love you