A 21-year track record with a press controls manufacturer has led a Slovenian web printer to a new long-term service contract.
Upgrades at Salomon Print in Ljubljana cover the company’s 2001 KBA Colora press and follow intensive cooperation with Koenig & Bauer which led to analysis of the press control system and assignment of retrofit solutions.
Three existing EAE control desks have been updated – including PC hardware and software, the EAE Info system and the EAE Service PC hardware – and CIP ink pre-setting added.
Service department manager Aleš Trček says QIPC-EAE was chosen on the basis of past experiences with the company and products, EAE having originally installed the press controls solutions. “In all those years it worked perfectly,” he says. “We have always been extremely satisfied with the company, their hardware and personnel. The same goes for the remote service, of which I am happy to say we have needed only a few times in the past 21 years. A track record unsurpassed by any other system in our possession.”
Trček reports similar experience with parent company QIPC, which upgraded colour register on a heatset press in 2017.
He says both installation and upgrade were “very straightforward” with zero impact on production. “None of our daily productions were jeopardised while upgrade and installations were going on during morning hours.”
Control consoles are now “extremely responsive”, the ink pre-setting system helps cut start-up waste, and deliver a higher quality product from start to finish.
Trček says other press issues have been exposed which they will now address to reduce waste further. “It only took a few production days for the whole system to optimise itself to a degree where ink pre-setting is so good that no operator intervention is needed at start-up of production,” he said. “Amazing!”
As with QIPC-EAE, Salomon has a long-term relationship with agents Grafmat-Uslage, with Trček maintaining daily contact with director Ivan Rogić – who he has known for more than 13 years – over the project. “A good mutual relationship is important,” he says.
QIPC-EAE sees the order as important for the region, with other printers watching the projects and benefits gained.
Salomon prints high-circulation daily and regional newspapers, magazines, commercial catalogues, leaflets and brochures for more than 200 clients, 70 per cent of which are regular customers.
Pictured (from left): EAE customer support manager Thorsten Kusicke, Aleš Trček, and EAE software engineer Thomas Heigl