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Hot Minute Ep. 8 - Horizon at Hunkeler Innovationdays 2025

• Horizon International • Season 2 • Episode 8

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In this episode of Hot Minute, Bryan Takano is joined by Horizon International Market Promotions Team General Manager Yasuo Taketsugu to introduce the Horizon system lineup at Hunkeler Innovationdays 2025.

 Listen to learn about highlights like:
・Canon & Horizon Inline Saddle Stitching System

・Hunkeler Integrated iCE STITCHLINER Mark V

・Robot Integrated Perfect Binding System

・Other collaborations and applications 


Watch Visual Podcast on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/CToGYtXYjz8


Learn more about our show at HID 2025:
https://www.horizon.co.jp/en/news/20250124-on-the-horizon-newsletter-hid25.html


＊＊＊＊ What is Hot Minute? ＊＊＊＊
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1245734/13711752


＊＊＊＊ Past Episodes ＊＊＊＊

#7 Horizon Smart Factory 2024
#6 Horizon Folder Automation with JD Mackie
#5 Horizon at drupa 2024
#4 Herbert Cheong and #HistorywithHorizon
#3 Ryuji Kinugawa and #HistorywithHorizon
#2 Hideharu Hori and #HistorywithHorizon
#1 Eijiro Hori and #HistorywithHorizon


【Disclaimer: This transcript has been created with AI and may contain typos】

Bryan  

Happy New Year and Lunar New Year, everyone. This is our very first podcast episode of 2025 and I'm joined by Yasuo Taketsugu, General Manager of Horizon International Market Promotions team, to talk about Hunkeler Innovationdays 2025 about the various collaborations and what we're exhibiting at the show. So it's very exciting. Thank you for joining me today Taketsugu-san.

 

Yasuo  

Thank you very much for inviting me. Bryan.

 

Bryan  

You're welcome. First of all, thank you to Hunkeler AG for inviting us and giving us the opportunity to participate in Hunkeler Innovationdays this year, we are really excited to connect with everyone and see everyone and show what kind of solutions we have. So for those of you who are unfamiliar with the event, Hunkeler Innovationdays has long been one of the biggest international trade shows to focus solely on digital print technology, especially roll fed solutions. So this show is held every two years in Lucerne, Switzerland by Hunkeler, our partner and one of the biggest manufacturers for roll processing technology in the world. So pre-registration is required, so make sure to register if you want to go. This means it's not 100% open to the public, but it's definitely worth going because there's lots of big name printer vendors and also lots of manufacturers there that are in attendance, and they often bring lots of real equipment, lots of presses and new technology to show. Horizon actually has been attending the show since its very beginning, over 30 years ago. So how many times have you attended the show Taketsugu-san? and have you noticed any changes over the years? 

 

Yasuo  

Okay, um, I don't really remember how many times, but I've been in the company for 27 years, so probably at least, you know, six or seven times I've attended Hunkeler Innovationdays, but the Hunkeler Innovationdays at the beginning, I talk with the people, sometimes I was just, you know, go there to bind the book. But now, our system range has beenbroadened. So we can connect with the Hunkeler unwinder, cutter or, you know, for the even the cutsheet solution, we can collaborate with a printer partner so we can provide a good, good solution compared to the beginning. So every year getting exciting. 

 

Bryan  

Yeah, it's exciting to see how much the show has evolved for us and for Hunkeler, starting off with just a binder and cutter, making books out of all the thing, all the printed materials that people printed to the inline and highly automated robotic solutions that we have today. Wow, great. So, speaking of exciting and new things, what's exciting about this year's show? 

 

Yasuo  

I think, from what I heard from the all the printer vendors, or the finishing vendors, you know, everybody are bringing something new to this show. And I'm still, still, you know, not many things are public yet, but we will definitely see, you know, interesting solution from the roll solution, and then cutsheet solution, and then even from us, we will be showing some exciting products as well. 

 

Bryan  

Can we go a little bit deeper into that Taketsugu-san? So what's some of the new or what's one of the highlights for our show this year? 

 

Yasuo  

So we will have a new solution at the Canon booth, which is actually printer inline saddle stitching solution. But the printer is actually Canon iX 3200 press. And then we connect with the iCE STITCHLINER Mark V together with our new rotating technology on it.

 

Bryan  

Yes, because the iX press prints it out short side first, right? Great. And then it goes through our iCE STITCHLINER Mark V for really high quality booklet?

 

Yasuo  

Yep. 

 

Bryan  

So one pass from blank sheets all the way to finished booklets with no operator touch points

 

Yasuo  

Yes.

 

Bryan  

Essentially one operator can do the whole production. 

 

Yasuo  

Yeah, when Booklet Maker or saddle stitcher is connected with the printing press, it was more like, you know, like a booklet making system. It was more for office material or, you know, just the giving away type of thing. But the really, the inkjet technology is highly advanced, so the quality level is going to the commercial printing level. So together with the iX press, with the STITCHLINER, we can provide a professional quality, saddle stitching piece out from the system.

 

Bryan  

Yes. So if you want to see just how high quality that is, please feel free to stop by the system. It'll be inside the Canon booth, which is actually right next to our booth as well. So make sure to take a look. It's very exciting. Next, why don't we introduce the systems within our booth? So I understand that we'll have systems that can produce a wide range of applications, from perfect bound, perfect bound paperback books to stitched booklets and even cut cards. So wide range of applications. Where should we start? Taketsugu-san?

 

Yasuo  

Okay, we talked about a saddle stitching at the beginning. So let's talk about a saddle stitching solution first. STITCHLINER Mark V. We will be exhibiting at our booth for saddle stitching work. But that one is actually more for, you know, roll fed solution. So Hunkeler unwinder, cutter and then configured with the STITCHLINER Mark V. But unique thing about this system is actually we have the offline sheet feeder configuration so we can actually run the main job from the roll, and then kind of backup job from the sheet feeder as well. But the actually, I said backup but this sheet feeder is actually a very good solution. It's a feeding setup automatically and also the speed for the system is actually for the 45,000 sheets per hour with the A4 sheets. So it's pretty amazing speed.

 

Bryan  

Yes, and I believe we showed the system at drupa 2024, but once you see, once you see the high speed sheet feeder run, you can't really believe how fast it's going. It's very stable for how fast the sheets feed, it's really stable so you're able to get a very fast and stable production from it.

 

Yasuo  

 Yeah. 

 

Bryan  

And I believe there's also one new feature of the system that we're going to be showing off.

 

Yasuo  

Yep. So we've been developing together with Hunkeler about a new interface, so which is actually dynamic changeover feature. What we do is actually when the job is changed, system pause it and making a changeover, and changing the speed. And also we are able to change the, you know, the format as well. So what we are going to demonstrate is actually different sheet count application and different finished size application. So you will see speed change and a format change in a one roll.

 

Bryan  

With no operator, touch points in between.

 

Yasuo  

Yeah. 

 

Bryan  

So it's all automatic. 

 

Yasuo  

All automatic.

 

Bryan  

Wow, crazy. That's exciting. And we'll have quite a few rolls printed by printer vending partners, right?

 

Yasuo  

Yeah, yeah. We have a quite, a quite a lot of rolls. One is from SCREEN and Fujifilm, HP and Kodak.

 

Bryan  

Great. So we'll have lots of rolls to process into booklets.

 

Yasuo  

Yeah. 

 

Bryan  

All right, that sounds good for the iCE STITCHLINER Mark V. What other systems do we have in the booth? Taketsugu-san?

 

Yasuo  

So another system we have is actually, of course, we will have a perfect binding solutions, but the robot integrated perfect binding system. 

 

Bryan  

And I'm sure some of you may have seen the picture of this on from our newsletter ON THE HORIZON!, but it looks pretty interesting, right? There's two binders and one trimmer?

 

Yasuo  

Yeah, yeah. So we will have two binders. One binder is a four clamp perfect binder, BQ-500 and another perfect binder is a BQ-300 single clamp perfect binder.

 

Bryan  

And both of these perfect binders will be fed with a robot arm?

 

Yasuo  

Yes, that's true. So both you know, BQ-500 and BQ-300 feeding is by the robot, but we will do something unique on the BQ-300 side. So one robot is actually feeding a book block into the carriage clamp and also taking the perfect bound book onto the conveyor of the three side trimmer, which is actually HT-300.

 

Bryan  

Great. So bound books from both of the binders will meet on the same conveyor and then be fed into our HT-300.

 

Yasuo  

So we will have a very, you know, variety of you know, the books actually for the Loose sheet book block came from HP, and then the glued book block came from Ricoh, and then Hunkeler.

 

Bryan  

Great. So we'll have a variety of different styles of book blocks being fed into the binders and finishing with two different finished formats. Great. And with the robotics and the inline system, you're able to minimize the labor and the transportation in between the various processes, right? 

 

Yasuo  

Yeah, yeah. And also single robot feeding and then the feeding onto the carriage clamp and then feeding onto the conveyor for the HT-300 actually, we can minimize the footprint as well. 

 

Bryan  

Great and I believe that's the first time that we've ever done that. So it'll be very exciting to see.

 

Yasuo  

Yeah.

 

Bryan  

All right, moving on to another system, we'll also have our sheet processor, the SmartSlitter, which can cut, crease, slit and perforate, yeah, in one pass, and we'll be receiving sheets from a certain printer vendor partner, right? 

 

Yasuo  

Yeah. Since you know, we are next to each other with the Canon, so we will collaborate applications with Canon. Canon iX 3200 actually print the application for the SmartSlitter, and then the that product will be delivered by the AMR robot from the Canon booth to our booth.

 

Bryan  

So automating the logistics in between the press and the finishing system. Great. We'll be making various card applications, right? 

 

Yasuo  

And then some surprise as well. I think. 

 

Bryan  

Oh, surprise?! Everyone loves surprises I guess you'll have to stop by the booth to see. And of course, all of these systems will be connected with iCE LiNK our cloud based finishing management system. What are we trying to show at HID this time?

 

Yasuo  

Okay, so all the system in our booth and also the partner booth will be connected with iCE LiNK, and then the iCE LiNK is able to capture the data from the machine, so you can do the real time monitoring, and you can see what's happening, and you can do actually, the data analysis as well.

 

Bryan  

And you can see how many jobs are being processed on the machines with a real time status, so if it's running or if it's down,..

 

Yasuo  

Yeah. 

 

Bryan  

So it's very useful for like, production managers, right? Additionally, it can handle automated workflows as well, but this time we'll be showing a kind of a different feature, 

 

Yasuo  

Yeah. 

 

Bryan  

Right? 

 

Yasuo  

Yeah.

 

Bryan  

That's it for all the solutions in our booth. Additionally, we will have another solution in the Hunkeler booth, right? 

 

Yasuo  

Yeah, yeah. So it's actually the similar system, like last time at the Hunkeler Innovationdays, but the we will be showing the folding line together with the Hunkeler unwinder plow folder and cutter actually to do the direct mailing piece.

 

Bryan  

And in addition to the Hunkeler booth, we also have our regional distributing partner, Gietz and Co, who will have their own booth and have a wide variety of standalone and tabletop systems, right? 

 

Yasuo  

Yeah. 

 

Bryan  

So feel free to stop by if you want to see our B2 Cross Folder, the iCE FOLDER AFV-566FKT or our very popular Creaser and Folder the CRF 362 as well as some tabletop folders and binders, the PFP-3300 and the tabletop binder, BQ-P65 so make sure to stop by their booth GIetz & Co, which is also in Hall 2, I believe, great. That does a pretty good job of introducing all the systems that will be shown at Hunkeler Innovationdays. Do you have any last words to our listeners? Taketsugu-san

 

Yasuo  

Yeah. So Hunkeler Innovationdaysdefinitely, will be the exciting show. So we are looking forward to, you know, seeing you and then show you our, you know, good solution to you.

 

Bryan  

Yes. So for those who aren't able to make it to Switzerland, we'll be posting daily on our social media, so make sure to check for pictures and maybe videos of the event. All right, thank you for joining me. Taketsugu-san and we'll see all of you at Hunkeler Innovationdays 2025 February, 24 through the 27th at our booth in Hall 2.