16 nEWSPAPER PRODUCTION www.worldnewspublishingfocus.org given also about the Thermalnews PT plate, which permits elimination of pre-heating and pre-rinsing, thus allowing savings of up to 60 percent on electrical power and up to 50 percent on water. This year Kodak focused also on digital printing (see below). Control systems for quality control Q.I. Press Controls used the World Publishing Expo to present its latest product, Air Bustle Device II. This is a contact-free device designed to correct fan-out. It is installed between the printing units and the web, slightly raised by a continuous air stream and in this way compensating for any widening of the web. Sales Director Jaco Bleijenberg points out its low compressed air consumption of 20 litres per minute. “Our automation products help newspaper printing operations lower their consumables and personnel costs. According to our calculations, depending on the number of production runs concerned, ROI can be reached in one to two years,“ Bleijenberg says. The fact that Druckhaus Spandau (Axel Springer) is a Print Automation Platform customer gave 3TControl the opportunity to demonstrate the system in a production environment in nearby Spandau to 25 interested Expo visitors. As the company’s manager for business development, Sergio Muñoz, said, the press was operated by just one person, who carried out minimal manual intervention at the control desk – the automatic control did the rest. Innovations for the mailroom The generously dimensioned Ferag stand was dominated by a monitor wall showing the latest product innovations: the High Performance Conveyor, whose chains and grips are made of high-quality plastic, and the High Performance Stacker with servo drive and a throughput of 25 bundles per minute. Visitors to the Müller Martini stand saw demonstrations of the further-developed Connex.Mailroom process management system, which offers a systematic overview of the mailroom production data (Connex.Mailroom replaces the former Mailroom Production Control MPC). It permits concrete, real-time queries regarding nonproduction times, inserted supplements and output. Information was provided also about the new products introduced in 2012, namely FlexLiner (the first system was put into operation at SKN Druck und Verlag in Emden, Germany) and FlexPack. The highlight of the Müller Martini customer event was a visit to Europe’s biggest mailroom, in Druckhaus Spandau. In addition to the A955 high-speed inserter, Schur Packaging Systems exhibited its newly designed PUC3201 pick-up station. Both units are characterised by a small footprint and compact design, permitting easy integration into any type of mailroom. Ease of use and low maintenance are other claimed advantages. New at the Expo: digital printing For the first time, the topic of digital printing was introduced as a focal point at this year’s World Publishing Expo. A group of exhibitors presented their respective offerings under the slogan “Digital Print Moves” in a pavilion designed especially for the purpose in Hall 2. With its RotaJet76, KBA now offers an inkjet web press as a complement to its offset press programme. The RotaJet76 is suitable also for newspaper printing applications. Visitors were invited to inspect a model of the press as well as samples printed on it. Klaus Eppich, project leader Web Presses Digital, said, “Because digital printing is a non-impact process, high-precision press building is even more important that in offset. It is vital that the web travels precisely and consistently below the printing heads.“ A central cylinder ensures web stability during the printing process and thus a high degree of register precision. Kodak showed the Prosper S30 imprinting system via a video recording made at the Axel Springer printing plant in Ahrensburg, where the system is installed on a web offset press and is used to personalise products at full press speed. (Participants in a visit to the Berlin-Spandau printing plant, organised by Kodak, had the opportunity to inspect the system under production conditions.) Visitors were informed also about the Kodak Versamark presses designed to produce newspapers in short print runs. Océ Printing Systems put the focus on its Jet- Stream web press series and presented various newspapers as printed samples. manroland web systems emphasised digital printing itself less than finishing, providing information about the FoldLine variable-format folding system that will be used at the Rivet Presse Edition printing plant in France in conjunction with two Océ JetStream 4300 presses for newspaper production. It is planned to produce the newspapers there in the sequence required for delivery. The sale of another FoldLine system was announced at the show. The buyer is the Italian printing company Rotlito Lombarda in Seggiano di Piotello (near Milan), which plans to use it to produce a wide range of products, including newspapers. The Dutch company Peecho presented its Simple Print Service, which uses the Internet to fulfill orders for “on-demand” digital printing of contents available in digital form (web-to-print).”We invented ‘the printing head for the Internet,’“ says Martijn Groot, CEO and cofounder of Peecho. In order to use the Peecho technology and offer customers print-on-demand service, publishing houses or other content owners only need to install the software on their website. For print production, Peecho calls on a network of professional digital printing partners in Europe and the U.S.A. Digital printing events at the Expo On the Media Port stage “Power of Print,“ located next to the “Digital Print Moves“ pavilion, several speakers presented digital printing case studies. These included Stefaan Vanysacker, project leader at Halewijn Drukkerij in Belgium, who reported about a very special newspaper. Kerk & leven (Church & Life) is published weekly by the Catholic Church and has a circulation of 300,000 copies – in 481 different editions. Previously printed by the offset process, today the paper is produced as a personalised product by digital printing on two Océ ColorStream 3900 lines using the inkjet process. Other contributions about digital newspaper printing came from Tobias Kuhn, responsible at Axel Springer for equipping all Bild-Zeitung printing sites in Germany with Prosper S30 imprinting systems, and from Grit Neumann of Springer-Druckhaus Spandau, who reported on the innovative potential of digital printing. Martin Novotny, head of the Grafie CZ printing company in Prague, highlighted the possibilities that digital printing opened for the newspaper Noviny. At the SFN Forum “Digital Printing Strategies“: W Dario de Cian, general manager of the Italian Centro Stampa Quotidiani (CSQ), reported on his experiences of the past seven months of working with a HP T230 inkjet press to produce, for example, hyperlocal supplements for the newspaper Giornale di Brescia, which is printed there in parallel in offset. The supplements and main section are then combined into a hybrid product in the mailroom. According to de Cian, the share of digital printing in CSQ’s turnover is about 2 percent, but it is certain that this share will increase considerably in the future. Other speakers at this event were: W Ralf Schlözer, director of On Demand Consulting Service Europe, U.K., who provided an overview of the highspeed inkjet press market; W Jack Knadjian, director of HJ Consulting, U.K., who described, among other things, the technologies and cost structures in digital printing; and W Hubert Pedurand, director of the RotOcéan printing company on the island of La Réunion, who described his digital printing business as well as the INIGraph project of UNIC (Union Nationale de l‘Imprimerie & de la Communication) in France, for which he acts as project leader. By Charlotte Janischewski, WAN-IFRA Senior Editor focusing on newspaper production. Dario de Cian during his lecture on the use of digital printing in the CSQ newspaper printing centre in Italy. This case study is included in the SFN Report “ Digital printing for newspapers,“ which was presented at the World Publishing Expo: www.wan-ifra.org/reports/ 2013/09/30/digital-printing-for-newspapers Left: Non-contact fan-out correction by means of compressed air: the Air Bustle Device II from Q.I. Press Controls with its touch screen. Centre: The new Schur PUC3201 pick-up station. Right: Ferag showed the new HPC and HPS products on a large monitor. No vEMBER/DeCem BER 2013
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