The Heidelberg machine arrived at Hasbro’s Waterford manufacturing plant in the Republic of Ireland at the beginning of January and replaced a 12-year-old Speedmaster SM 74.
It runs alongside a retained two-colour SM 74 in producing up to 10m games a year, including the ever-popular Monopoly, Cluedo and Twister board games.
The company said that the wide range of differing substrate thicknesses used in producing the boards was a key determiner it opting for the XL 75.
Hasbro technical manager Sam Jordan said that the XL 75’s ability to handle a wide variety of stocks, along with its high speed and fast makereadies, was the aspect that led Hasbro to choose the 18,000sph press.
The B2 five-colour plus coater has also been configured with Prinect Inpress Control automated colour and register control and Prinect Pressroom Manager, which unites the colour measurement systems across its presses.
Jordan said that Hasbro is working with Heidelberg to achieve ISO 12647-2 colour certification before the end of 2013 with the help of the control system.
Jordan said: "We’ve always strived to be the first in class to get different accreditations. We got an ISO 14001 environmental certification ahead of anyone else in our market and we’re also going for a safety accreditation at the moment.
"Again, it is something that is not normally done in our industry but we like to be the first to do these things."
