EnWSPAPER PORDUCTION 15 www.worldnewspublishingfocus.org Automation, digital printing steal the show Automation continues to be a hot topic in newspaper production, as evidenced by this year’s World Publishing Expo in Berlin. Other core topics to emerge were life cycle management and – something entirely new – digital printing. Even though an increasing number of production-oriented suppliers don‘t actually bring some of their technologies and products to the show, that has not diminished visitors‘ interest. In fact, exhibitors reported that plenty of customers visited their stands, and intensive discussions were held in a positive atmosphere. Here are some of the major developments taking shape for production managers to keep an eye on in the coming months. Developments in offset A major attraction on the Goss International stand was the demonstration of the plate changing system for the single-width Goss Magnum Compact, the latest addition to the Goss press programme. With the Autoplate system, plate change can be carried out in about 22 seconds and a complete job change in less than 10 minutes. Eric Bell, Goss Marketing Manager, cites the possibility to enter the plate for the next job into the dispenser during a print run as a highlight of the system. The Goss Magnum Compact (printing tower height: 2.20 m) is designed in England and built in China, where, Bell says, a test press will be installed and started up in the coming weeks. Among the advantages of the press, besides quick job changes, is a low waste level. Bell says the U.S.A., India, eastern Europe, and various African countries are the target markets. Koenig & Bauer announced the sale of a doublewidth Commander CT to the Swiss printing company Mittelland Zeitungsdruck (AZ Medien) in Aarau. The compact 80-page press will be equipped with two eighthigh towers, one four-high tower, five autopasters and one jaw folder and commence production next September. KBA aims to offset the drop in revenue from web presses – an industry-wide development – with its new digital printing division, among other measures (see page 16). manroland web systems used the occasion to announce the sale of a Colorman autoprint press to the Finnish printing company Punamusta, which produces local newspapers, magazines and advertising material for the Finnish, Russian and Scandinavian markets. manroland also announced that it had sold 24 units of the new ControlCenter system since it was launched at last year’s drupa event. Part of the concept is a mobile operating system that allows remote control of the press via the newly developed control desk. For the medium circulation range, the new Colorman e:line 45 version has been launched. The Cromoman 4-1 is now available in different versions and for web widths up to 1600 mm. (See also section on digital printing in this issue). Wifag CEO Jörgen Karlsson described the company’s reorientation at a press conference held during the Expo. In future, the company’s offering will no longer be confined solely to the newspaper market. Instead, the new focus will be on the areas of packaging, automation and digital printing. The Wifag Polytype Group combines a large number of industry branches, technologies and competencies from which all member companies could benefit, said Karlsson. He said, “Wifag is committed to its newspaper customers and ensuring their production safety.“ Since demand for new presses is very limited, Wifag is focusing on retrofitting and automation (with its own closed loop-systems) in the newspaper area. Wifag said it has sold 10 units of its Control Consol (shown on the stand) since its introduction in 2012. To date, however, no buyer has been found for the new SLine press, which, Karlsson said, is not because of the press concept but rather its price. Wifag is determined not to reduce the selling price to below the production cost. Prepress and plates Fujifilm showed a complete newspaper prepress system, consisting of the Luxel News VMAX Violet-CTP imager, Brillia Pro-VN plate for low-chemistry processing, and wNews-Workflow of its new workflow partner, wobeteam. Glunz & Jensen – on a joint stand with DotLine – demonstrated its new HDX NewsSpeed developing system in combination with the DotLine VMAX 400 highspeed imager. The line can produce 400 plates per hour. Kodak announced the worldwide market release of the process-free Sonora News plate. Information was November/DeCEM ber 2013 With immediate effect, the KBA RotaJet76 is available also for newspaper printing. Here KBA sales director Jochen Schwab shows printed webs on newsprint and other paper grades. A model of the RotaJet press can be seen in the background. Demonstrations were given on the ABB stand of the prototype of a future user interface, Tobii Eye Tracker, which uses eye tracking and gesture control. See the World Publishing Expo blog for a description of how it works: blog.wan-ifra.org/node/14619 Goss Marketing Manager Eric Bell demonstrates putting the plate into the Autoplate changing system, which carries out de-plating and plating-up in a single pass. The Magnum Compact is the only single-wide newspaper press to offer this option.
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