A historic hall, once the turning shop of the August Riedinger engineering works, and a secret ammunition factory during World War II has been opened as manroland’s new Print Technology Centre Augsburg. The ‘test track’ concentrates web-offser know-how as a think tank and catalyst for forward-looking ideas. With customers, associates and the trade press, webfed printing executive board member Paul Steidle opened the advancement and development centre for newspaper and commercial web offset printing, which offers linked training courses for all aspects of web offset. More than 1000 customers and partners come to Augsburg every year to take part in training courses, seminars and dialogues. The hall converted for the purpose was the post-war assembly hall for Poly automatic presses and more recently a testing site. Steidle says the PTC is “an investment in the future” of web offset: “The market demands ever more complex solutions from press manufacturers for workflow optimisation. “Groundbreaking system solutions and highly-trained staff provide a printing company with decisive advantages in the marketplace,” he says. The PTC offers training under practical conditions, with a programme primarily aimed at staff directly or indirectly involved with presses. For practical training sessions a Colorman XXL with APL and APL logistics and the latest control console technology is available, along with heatset systems and a complete prepress department for newspaper and commercial web offset. manroland says practically-minded people will also find ideal conditions to optimise all areas of their printing companies. From development to marketability, from prepress to postpress, and from printnet publishing workflow and printnet commercial workflow, PTC offers extensive research and development that links all disciplines – electronics, mechanics, printing and process technology, spare parts and wear parts, control console and prepress. In the printcom laboratory, experts focus on inks, dampening solution and types of paper, while process components are available to study print quality and sustained cost reduction.