Register Guidance Answers Need For More Colour

The Ballarat Courier newspaper in Australia has installed a Quadtech Register Guidance System with Multicam on a nine-tower MAN Roland Uniset 75 pressline.

Quadtech claimed that the contract was one of the most extensive retro-fit projects on a single width pressline in Australia that continued the relationship between the company and the Rural Press newspaper group (now part of Fairfax Media) of which Ballarat is one of the largest sites.

The Register Guidance System was supplied and installed by Quadtech's local agent, Plunkett and Johnson.

The Ballarat site had previously been running another register control system but the demand for more and higher quality colour pages, faster start-ups and reduced waste prompted the company to investigate upgrading its register control to a more comprehensive system that was capable of managing the entire pressline.

The previous system controlled only the top and bottom cylinders on each tower.

The Register Guidance System with Multicam, which is integrated through the latest Icon platform, enables the whole pressline to be controlled from a single console.

According to Michael Condon, manager of Rural Press Printing Ballarat, the Quadtech system was chosen because of its ease of installation, the back-up service in Australia and its cost competitiveness.

Quadtech already had a history of working with Rural Press on a number of different sites so the technology was already familiar to the operators.

Since its installation, the system has been proven to be directly responsible for a one per cent reduction in operating waste.

Start-ups have been faster with less spoilage, saving consumables and time, whilst productivity has improved as a result of having one less variable to worry about on the press, said Quadtech.

Michael Condon said: "We certainly noticed a big savings in waste and those savings are worth a great deal to our bottom line.

The Quadtech technology is a much quicker system and it locks in much faster so the press operators have more time on the press to get their colour right." The Multicam camera is said to offer a number of benefits over comparable systems, such as the smallest 'white space' requirements on the page, fast searching and tracking of the dots and reduced maintenance.

The integrated Icon operating platform also makes it easy to maintain control over the system via a single interface.

In addition to the six-day-a-week Courier, the site also prints a wide range of other local and regional newspapers including the Geelong Advertiser, Bendigo Advertiser and Wimmera Mail-Times, as well as a range of coldset commercial and contract work, including the Melbourne Trading Post, Inpress magazine and Beat magazine.

According to Michael Condon, since switching to the Quadtech system, clients have noticed the difference in quality and have commented on the fact that pictures appear much sharper.

"Customers can see their registration holds much better throughout the runs and as a result we are able to offer the system as a selling point to them," he commented.

Staff morale has also improved following the installation as a result of not having to worry about achieving and maintaining register during a print run and freeing up resources to focus on other critical tasks.

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