➤ Economic restraints make a persuasive case for upgrading an existing press rather than replacing it, and as managing director of QI Press Controls Australasia James Haisman reports, the results can be outstanding.
“The benefits of motorisation and automatic colour register systems are not restricted to the latest tower presses, which in most cases, need them anyway,” he says.
In a relatively short period, QI has installed its state-of-the-art technology on a range of systems in Australia and New Zealand: KBA Colora and Goss Uniliner S double-width presses, as well as KBA Comet, manroland Uniset, Goss Community, DGM430 and Tensor single-width lines.
“Now an installation on the Uniman 4/2 press at the ‘Waikato Times’ is further proof that our motorisation and automatic register control solutions work equally well on older presses and on new and sophisticated equipment,” he says.
QI Press Controls has a range of upgrade options designed to improve colour quality and dramatically reduce makeready time and printed waste. QI’s technology – including the new mRC colour register control system which can operate with or without register marks – leads the world, and was rewarded with orders worth almost $12 million at last year’s DRUPA. Its ‘total control’ markless Intelligent Density System (IDS) is in use at numerous sites around the world, with installations including Canadian contract printer Transcontinental’s triple-width Colorman XXL sites in North America.
In the fully automatic mRC – for markless Register Control colour and cut-off register system – a digital camera with an integrated microprocessor processes measured data in real-time. Either printed micro marks or the TIFF image data can be used as reference. The ‘markless’ mode is currently not available in Germany, UK, Japan and the USA.
The system makes a bigger print area available, and further reduces waste because colours are automatically brought into register during start-up. It can be easily expanded with the IQM module providing quality reporting.
Integrated quality control from QI includes the Air Bustle Device, which leverages an Australian invention to address the problem of ‘fan-out’ of a web resulting from variables of tension, ink and water-based dampening solution. The resulting misregister is a common problem on multicolour presses in high-volume production.
At the ‘Waikato Times’, QI in conjunction with Fairfax Media NZ group printing and publishing manager Dennis Horne and his technical team implementated a solution that perfectly met requirements. “QI Press Controls prides itself on being a partner, not just a supplier to its customers and this approach certainly paid dividends here,” says Haisman.
The upgrade of the 20-year-old press including motorisation and IRS automatic register has increased press efficiency, maximised quality, and reduced health and safety issues, while minimising waste.
Founded in 1872, the 41,000-circulation ‘Waikato Times’ is New Zealand’s largest regional daily and one of the country’s oldest, covering a region south of Auckland to Taupo, and taking in large areas of premium dairy, forestry and thoroughbred land developments. With a staff of 250, the newspaper maintains a strong position in its community, claiming to be ‘as Waikato as it gets’ ... a major influence in all that is good for the citizens of Hamilton and the region. Named best major daily newspaper in the 1996 Qantas Awards, it has been a finalist and runner-up in two successive years. Additionally, the ‘Hamilton Press’ is distributed to households in the city and rural environs.
Installed in a modern facility in suburban Te Rapa, the Uniman 4/2 has pairs of stacked units grouped to provide process colour. But with manual register adjustment and a distance of 15 metres from first to last colour, Waikato regional operations manager Bob Anderson admits achieving quality work with acceptable wastage was a constant challenge. “We wanted to reduce waste, maintain the best quality and improve health and safety by dramatically reducing the need to go up and down stairs,” he says. “We also wanted a system that could be easily transferred to another press if required.”
Selection of the QI system included comparison of available systems and assessment of results being achieved by a similar system at Fairfax Regional Printers in Beresfield, NSW.
“All the goals we identified are being achieved: Waste has been reduced, we achieve best quality quicker and are able to maintain it,” Bob Anderson says. “Paster spoils have been reduced from an average of 170 to 70, and waste on start-up is down from an average 1700 to under 1000 and regularly half that or less.
“The rego pulls in after around 200 copies, so printers can concentrate on other issues, and no longer have to climb stairs to make adjustments.”
And there’s more praise for QI – the smooth trouble-free installation; the small pattern of register marks, “so small that they are hardly visible” and the system’s consistent performance. Says shift supervisor Mike Morgan, “We don’t have to worry about register at start up because the QI system is quicker than we are and good papers are waiting for us.”
With recent changes including installation of CTP and the introduction of regular printing maintenance, the QI system has significantly improved quality and also removed a number of variables that were potentially contributing to printing issues.
With run lengths between 9000 and 80,000, overall waste has been pulled back from more than ten per cent to under 7.5 per cent. “This will see us achieve an 18 month payback on the investment with QI,” says Anderson.
Q.I. Press Controls Australasia
10/197-199 Springvale Road,
Nunawading, Vic 3131
Ph: (03) 9878 0555
James Haisman – Managing Director
Email: j.haisman@qipc.com
www.qipc.com
