Company I work for wants to buy a new 40 inch 6 color press with AQ. I would like to hear from pressmen who have worked on heidelberg and komori presses. Question is - which do you prefer and why? If you have experience on both presses latest technology it would be great to hear from you. Thanks

Komori is way better then all the SM/CD HD models.
more usfull tech , more smart engineering and alot less problems over years & meny milions of top quality output.
but pricewise - when you get to sell it on , you will allways get more for a heidelberg.
Top quality , top durabillity over meny years , easy use - all go for the Komori.
If you buy a HD , you buy with it a need for constant tech service and lot's of parts.
been there , never again - for me...only Komori
and soon is comming the LSX model - even better then any Komori known till now...

...................oh well you can but dream, lol

I have worked both and i can safely say Heidelberg build a far better press than Komori.
Better quality metals, user friendly electronic touchscreen, an excellent and easy to use perfector system, a feeder that has been fine tuned over the years so very few adjustments need to be made when using different stocks and a residual re-sale cost that any Komori owner would love to have.

DID YOU ONLY WORK ON BOTH or owned them both ?

When you have a Heidelberg you are connected by blood vessels to the part department.... and you know your service engineers well as you see them all the time.
When you own a Komori , you hardly need parts and you do not hold the Komori engineer's tel # in your speed dail as you allmost never need them.

This is prior to inspecting the actual print quality.
6 months ago , in the gala evening for the "printer of the year 2007" in Boston one of the gold medal winners (global winner) was asket by an other winner what kind of Heidelberg he used to do the winning job...
He replied - I used a Komori
the one who asked answered - no wonder we could not beet you , we have a problem...

The dot gain on a komori is lower (at same standard blankets , paper & pressure) and the print is way sharper.

yes , they do not sell as good as heidelberg but,,,, by the time you need to sell them you made way more money then with a Heidelberg.

I'm with Meny here.

I've run 26, 28, 40 inch Komori's in the 80's, sold them against Heidelbergs in the 90's and now in this century I run a printshop and guess what? Yep I put my money where my mouth was: I've bought L426, S226P, L428 and our latest is go on guess...a Lithrone 626EMP, management system, auto perfecting 2/4, auto washup, semi auto plate up. What a press!

Why did I buy Komori? Low repair bills - the first three presses only needed the occasional part (usually consumable as opposed to catastrophic failure). As for residuals, that depends on the prevailing local market conditions and the perception of either product in that market. UK for example has perceived Komori as equivalent or better than Heidelberg for resale/trade in. We achieved, after 7 years of use, 45% of the original purchase price on our L428.

I personally visited the Komori 40" build facility in Toride, Japan some years ago and was very impressed to see how these presses come together.

I do believe that Komori has developed one of the best press marques in the world.

Now I have to be objective and also say that Heidelberg is not a bad press - I suppose it depends what type of printing you do. We produce promotional colour print - so anything from business cards to brochures, booklets, posters. We don't venture into packaging or heavyweight boards.

Nuggets of info.
Makeready times are famously low - 1988 they did the world's first 6min 4col makeready. Without auto plate up!

The world's first komori 40" still running in China

Unless things have changed since I was in the sell zone... triple race taper bearings for impression, plate and blanket cylinders ensure minimum vibration levels compared to needle bearings.

Double sideframes to maximise rigidity - this was done to cope with Japan's many minor earthquakes. (The first Heidelberg installed in Japan suffered greatly from doubling due to their single unit construction)

I could go on & on, best thing to do is major research, talk to users of both and then see them in the field. Beware of only being shown flagship companies - try and find a printer at your level (whatever that is) and get to talk to the pressmen. They will be ruthless if they're anything like they are in the UK & Spain.

Good luck (and let us know which one you go for)

I think this can be argued to death just like Canon VS's Nikon but I've run both and prefer Heidelberg.

I will admit that I haven't run a late model Lithron but I press checked several jobs at a trade shop that had one and I wasn't impressed. The auto plate hanging system ate several plates while I was waiting for press checks. In general the electronics looked like over kill but that could apply to a late model Heidelberg too. I was also unhappy with the color quality (fluctuation) but that could be the press operators.

I've run a lot of Heidelberg's and have only encountered one press that required frequent service calls.

Depends on what you want to spend. Both presses run good quailty work. Komori will be cheaper and cheaper to mantain down the road. They dont seem to have the high part mark up as Heidelberg and Mits do. Example same switch company on two different presses. Komoris part was 175 dollars hedelberg was 325.