German Newspapers Invest In Waterless Printing

German regional newspaper Sudkurier is to become the latest in a gathering volume of news titles in the country to commit to waterless printing.

The Georg von Holtzbrinck publishing group, which owns Sudkurier, along with Handelsblatt and Die Zeit, has ordered from KBA one of the company's automated triple-width Cortina presses.

The press line will comprise two 48pp sections.

The first section of the will enter production in Constance in autumn 2009 and the complete installation will progressively replace a KBA Express which delivered in 1989 and extended in 2000.

It will be the 14th Cortina and the fourth 6/2 version to leave KBA's production line.

Of the 60 Cortina towers ordered to date, 39 are in operation at nine locations in Germany, Switzerland, the Benelux states and Denmark.

The Cortina has a claimed maximum hourly output in straight production of 80,000 full-colour 48pp broadsheet, or 96pp tabloid copies.

The four triple-wide compact towers for Sudkurier will feature all the automation modules that are standard on the Cortina, such as KBA's Platetronic plate changers, the company's Rollertronic roller setting, Niptronic remotely adjustable bearing units, colour-register controls, blanket washing and central ink pumping.

KBA said that for greater productivity the four Pastomat CL reelstands will be engineered to accept a bigger reel diameter of 1,500mm (59").

Eight double turning decks, two folder superstructures with three formers each, cut-off register controls, skip slitters, stitchers and two KBA KF 5 jaw folders will also be featured.

Other modules, such as a cross perforator, can be fitted at a later date.

The press will be controlled from KBA's Ergotronic consoles with a link-up to job scheduling and press preset and a Prime interface for integrating a soft-proofing system.

Sudkurier managing director, Rainer Wiesner, commented: "We checked out all the conventional options but none of them could compare with the Cortina's waterless technology in terms of print quality, cost efficiency and environmental credentials.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Cortina, with its compact footprint, is the press of the future.

Christoph Muller, KBA's executive vice-president for web press sales, added: "The first batch of Cortinas we sold mainly went to printers using other makes of press but I am pleased to see that now some of our long-standing customers, such as Sudkurier in Constance and Dumont Schauberg in Cologne are also beginning to take our innovative Compact platform on board.

The Sudkurier publishes a range of paid-for, free and special-interest titles as well as magazines.

Sudkurier, which was first published in 1945, is said to be one of the most popular newspaper in southern Germany, with a total daily circulation of around 140,000 copies and 400,000 readers.

Along with the Alb-Boten it is printed in 17 local editions and distributed in the Lake Constance region, the Black Forest and the upper reaches of the Rhine.

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