Press Controls Cut Waste At US Newspaper Plant

The News Tribune Company has cut waste by a third at its plant in Jefferson City, MO (USA) since installing a MAN Roland press with Quadtech press controls.

The News Tribune Company has cut waste by a third at its plant in Jefferson City, MO (USA) since installing a MAN Roland press with Quadtech press controls.

Bought as a package, the press came fitted with the Quadtech Register Guidance System with Multicam and the Quadtech Ribbon Control System with Multicam.

The systems are all integrated through the Quadtech ICON platform.

As well as printing its flagship daily, the News Tribune - which has a circulation of over 20,000 copies - the company has undertaken many contract printing jobs.

That brought with it an increased workload for staff and customer demands for superior quality.

Quadtech said that its press ancillaries are designed to help printing companies meet challenges, such as those by, automating the printing process.

Mike Vivion, production manager at the News Tribune Company, commented: "ICON also boosts our productivity by streamlining job set-up and execution.

It also makes the whole process less labour-intensive, leaving our highly qualified staff to apply their skills on other jobs." Quadtech systems on the ICON platform can be monitored through a single screen, giving the operators instant access to pre-set parameters for up to 1,000 jobs, said Quadtech.

The platform is integral to what the company described as its 'lights out' vision of printing, where controls are completely integrated, pre-set and automatic, resulting in the lowest possible waste and the highest possible number of saleable copies.

The Register Guidance System with Multicam is claimed to help reduce waste copies during start-up and other periods of register upset, such as a web splice.

Its claimed fast frame rate and high resolution allow it to view the entire repeat length of a web, rather than just the area where the register marks are printed.

The Ribbon Control System has also served to increase productivity at the News Tribune Company.

Vivion explained: "The Ribbon Control System has helped us meet some of the challenges presented to us by current industry trends.

For example, with an increase in the use of split doubles, the Ribbon Control System helps reduce waste by ensuring ribbon movement is controlled and the copy split over two pages is perfectly aligned." He concluded: "We are extremely satisfied with the way the Quadtech equipment has performed.

We would certainly use it again in the future.".

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