Newspaper & Mailroom
Newspapers at the Press of a Button – Fiction or Reality?
Tuesday 28. October 2008 - The issue that currently concerns newspapers the most is their own future and that of their customers. How can publishers and newspaper printers hold their ground in the cross-media and multimedia world of today and tomorrow? How can newspapers be produced today even more economically?
For many years, manroland is actively participating in the current change process of the newspaper industry. Implementation of the desired goals is based enhancing product quality and increasing production efficiency. Lowering the costs per copy remains the compulsory key to entrepreneurial success. To this end, manroland has developed important benchmarks for automatic printing processes – the new One Touch concept and matching autoprint press series. The manroland Directors of the Newspaper Business Sectors in Augsburg and Plauen, Anton Hamm and Georg Riescher, concerning these developments:
What are the challenges faced by modern newspapers today?
Riescher: Printed newspapers are well positioned internationally. At the same time, publishers and newspaper printers are faced with enormous pressures – existing business models must be reviewed and relaunched, and new ones created. Conventional thinking patterns have to be updated and adjusted to new market situations. The newspaper industry wants to constantly offer innovations to its readers and advertising customers. Newspapers as a product wants to become even more attractive and target-group oriented. This applies to all direct and indirect areas of newspaper production, including technical innovations, sales structures and publishing concepts, as important advertising media, and last but not least, the changing customer structure and the resulting focus on new target groups.
This sounds like there are great demands placed on newspaper production?
Hamm: That is correct. This is why, in addition to more flexibility, we need increased efficiency and automation in newspaper printing. All this must be attained hand in hand with constantly increasing quality demands. Contemporary newspaper printing has to comply with many different demands today. The costs per copy must be constantly lowered. Due to the growing demands of readers and advertisers, todays newspapers are increasingly developing into enhanced four-color products or even magazine-like products with qualities exceeding those offered by the conventional coldset method. The growing regionalization and target-group orientation requires smaller runs and therefore more, i.e. faster, change-over processes.
How will printing houses be able to meet these demands in the future, also in terms of profitability and efficiency?
Hamm: This is precisely where manroland’s One Touch concept comes into play. We not only want to offer our customers the best possible technical equipment for the highest quality requirements, but also aim to contribute to cost reductions through the use of the technical features in our presses. This is why our vision is to implement fully automatic newspaper production at the touch of a button, One Touch, in the near future. In line with the One Touch concept, we have developed the new manroland autoprint press series, which is characterized by key automation modules.
Such as?
Hamm: Pioneering developments for a fully automatic printing process include e.g. a fully automatic plate change from manroland, APL (Automatic Plate Loading) and APL logistics (the automatic transport of the exposed plates up to the press). Fast plate changes are becoming increasingly important. With APL, a complete change cycle in the newspaper press only takes three minutes. The required time is substantially reduced compared to manual handling. So, manroland employs industrial robots in publishing for the first time – a pioneering, yet future-proof, innovation.
Riescher: APL has been in use for several months in daily production on a COLORMAN printing press. You can change center spread plates, individual plates, or all of the cylinder plates at once. In the future, APL will also be available as an upgrade for existing machines.
Hamm: To make the plate change process even more effective, our engineers have developed APL logistics. APL logistics stands for an integrated workflow in the print shop. The system enables an almost fully automatic plate change process – with APL logistics only the disk storage must be loaded manually by the operator in the sound insulated room. They are moved into the loading position fully automatically via a rail transport system. In addition, the entire process is integrated into manrolands printnet workflow. This results in modern data handling and plate logistics management without the currently prevalent need for manual logistics between the prepress and press.
Riescher: Yet this will not be all in the future: We are continuing to develop innovative concepts for applying the robot system in other areas of production to fully automate the printing process. The ideas range from robot-controlled cleaning concepts to maintenance robots – innovations that will bring about a new dimension in newspaper printing.
But production at the push of a button is not only about change-over processes. Aren’t automated modules also needed for outgoing, ramp up and production mode?
Hamm: That is right. But suitable systems for presetting, control systems for color and cut-off registers, web tension control and ink density and dampening solution control are equally important. These features help manroland to partially implement the One Touch vision today and represent the first step towards fully automatic production – with the new manroland autoprint press series.
And which features are included in the autoprint series exactly?
Hamm: We are already excellently positioned in the area of presetting with our patented Quickstart system. Today, the production mode functions are especially important. The experiences gained in the area of ink and dampening solution control show that these presetting values occasionally support the printing process over an entire production run of several hours. Main effects on the offset printing process include temperature, dust and the emulsion behavior of the ink. Our experiences allow us to further automize and optimize the wet offset process.
Riescher: There are also many other important features that support the printing process. The proven manroland ClosedLoop systems work directly in the machine to guarantee an automatic and constant high quality throughout the entire print run. Let’s take for example the CutCon C System developed by manroland for cut-off register control. The new method decreases the amount of preparatory work and enhances the quality.
Hamm: Or for instance, InlineTension Control, our new automatic web tension control. It keeps the web tension constant in the critical web guide area between the printing unit and the folder superstructure. This reduces variations in the tension behavior within a paper roll, among paper rolls, but also among the individual webs. The cut-off register is optimized, the danger of web break is reduced and the creasing tendency minimized.
What about the future?
Riescher: Let’s be honest. manroland is currently the only provider whose special design principle with an APL robot evokes visions of the future. A few years ago, no one could even imagine using a robot on a printing unit – we want to utilize this technological advantage and invest further in the development of robot technology, which of course leaves room for many applications in the future.
Hamm: Exactly. APL and APL logistics are just the beginning of our comprehensive vision of the future. We have already defined the general conditions for our autoprint concept and made the One Touch vision visible. Now we will continue to search for suitable solutions to turn this vision into a reality in the near future and to fully automate the newspaper printing process.