Goss An interesting and innovative press manufacturer

[Deleted member 16349]

Goss has been doing some very interesting things over the years and lately there seems to be a transformation going on there.

Many years ago, I always enjoyed reading the TAGA technical papers from Goss. I always found something of value in their very engineering style approach to discussing the process. They missed key issues that were right in front of them but none the less, they were well done papers.

They were innovative with technology. They were working with positive ink feeds systems over twenty years ago and have refined them. But again they missed key issues that have prevented the positive ink feed technology from reaching its full potential.

They even made a disastrous ink feed concept that was called a positive keyless ink feed. It was clear to me why it was not workable but unfortunately it took some years of development and a few unsuccessful press installations to convince Goss. Goss recognized its mistake and stopped the development and sales effort. It was unfortunate that the engineers at Goss could not predict the outcome but failure goes hand in hand with innovation. I would rather see innovative press manufacturers fail once and a while, than to see non innovative press manufacturers try only to be safe.

Goss as a business has been innovative as well. It bought the web press line from Heidelberg and the post press business. It developed the Flexible Printing System for newspapers, where the press moves apart for easier access and with a lower height. At the last Drupa, Goss introduced its Folia press, which is a web press with a sheeter. This concept is an attempt to provide presses that deliver sheets of printed product at a much higher speed and a lower cost of paper. The idea is on the right track but limited to constant sheet sizes. But Goss continues to surprise.

Just the other day, Goss announced that it is providing a variable print repeat press for its Sunday line, which will be available in narrower widths (From 20" to 75") from its traditional presses. This is aimed at packaging markets but if the sheeters are used, it is easy to see this press doing a lot of damage to the high output sheetfed press market.

There's more. Now Goss has announced that it will be selling the Akiyama sheetfed press line in the USA and Canada. Possibly a good diversification into other press markets while the newpaper press market continues to deteriorate. Also an opening for more innovative press concepts from Goss into that market.

It is great to see such bold and innovative moves by a press manufacturer. All they now need is to use my ITB technology to get those packaging and sheetfed presses equipped with a low cost positive ink feed that can deal with high viscosity inks, etc.

Lately, something special is happening at Goss and I look forward to see what comes next.

 

[HecTiK]

they may have a bunch of new innovations, but I think they are junk. The place I'm working for bought a new Magnum 8, and lets just say we call it the POSM. We only can run one job on it that looks good, and its 5 webs of 18# black over black. Other than that...it gets us a lot of recycle income.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

they may have a bunch of new innovations, but I think they are junk. The place I'm working for bought a new Magnum 8, and lets just say we call it the POSM. We only can run one job on it that looks good, and its 5 webs of 18# black over black. Other than that...it gets us a lot of recycle income.

Thanks for the feedback even though it is a bit depressing. It is possible their innovation is wasted by poor engineering execution of the designs.

Can you please be more specific on what does not work well on your Magnum 8. Is it print sharpness or register or density control or something else or all of the above? There must be some good points with the bad points.

I am curious to know and hopefully you can provide more details.

Thanks,

Erik.

 

[HecTiK]

I don't know that much about it, because I'm never on that press. I do know that the techs installing it didn't really know what they were doing. The copies are always marking, and there is a bunch of other electrical problems on it. You'd figure when you spend a few million bucks on a brand new press, it should be flawless.

 

[Dan Roll]

I think Goss is not alone in being driven by management demand for engineering innovation, whether it makes sense for customers or not. The idea that new is better and the drive to differentiate a companies' products from their competition leads a lot of companies to introduce 'innovations' that the market is not actually looking for.

 

[Deleted member 16349]

I don't know that much about it, because I'm never on that press. I do know that the techs installing it didn't really know what they were doing. The copies are always marking, and there is a bunch of other electrical problems on it. You'd figure when you spend a few million bucks on a brand new press, it should be flawless.

If the problems are mostly due to the new installation, that is more normal than you would think. It is even more so with large projects that cost millions since they are usually much more complicated. Any upgrade in electrical components or software or random wiring errors can provide a large list of unexpected surprises that are not so easy to correct.

The techs might look like they don't know what they are doing because of the difficulty of finding the cause of these problems but that is normal too. I have seen this often. Until you find the cause of the problems, you are in the dark. I would hope that as a team, Goss has the capability to sort this out. These techs are normally sorting our all kinds of problems you would not be aware of but that is what they do.

Presses are not mass produced products and getting the bugs out is common. I hope for you that they do that within a reasonable amount of time.

Hopefully you will have a better idea of the performance of that press when that happens. Let us know how it goes. Good luck.