Some Very Big Webs

Some of the largest web presses on the market were ordered or installed during the second and third quarters of this year by some of the largest printing companies in North America. The presses were purchased for their greater productivity, based on state-of-the-art technologies, to meet the 'big picture' plans of these large printers. Some examples:

Fry, Mechanicsburg, PA, has purchased the world's first MAN Roland Uniset web press to be equipped with a Lithoman folder. Slated to arrive in December, the system is not scheduled to go into production until next spring. Nonetheless, some of the printer's best customers already are lining up with existing work and new projects.

Fry intends to use the press, its third MAN Roland, to print catalog, directory and publication products. The design of the Uniset/Lithoman combination will let customers utilize lighter stock to save on paper and postage costs. Meanwhile, print quality will be enhanced, with the press providing process-color opportunities on jobs that are currently limited to one or two colors.

Fry's Uniset will be built for speed, with eight units, accommodating three webs to produce at the rate of 75,000 iph. A MAN Roland 2:3:3 double chopper folder, a model that's usually paired with the company's Lithoman web press, will handle the inline finishing. The new press was designed to add a degree of flexibility and versatility not previously available in this press category.

“No one else could offer us a machine with this level of production flexibility,” says Denny Kapp, plant manager of the Fry facility in which the Uniset/Lithoman combo will run. “The configuration was right for our work mix. We liked Uniset's horizontal web lead arrangement.”

The press is capable of simultaneously delivering two different 32-page products, two different 48-page products, or one 64- or 96-page product—all from one folder.

“The fact that this folder runs at the highest levels of accuracy and performance suits it perfectly to our customers' needs,” he notes. “We expect to produce existing jobs more efficiently with the Uniset and attract new work as well.”

The press will feature MAN Roland's Pecom system with an optional PressManager (PPM) station. To maximize press uptime and promote makeready savings, PPM equips press operators to preset makeready parameters for an upcoming job while current work is printing. Another automation feature will be PowerPlateLoading (PPL) system, which is also a Lithoman development.

Completing Fry's Uniset package will be MAN Roland splicers, Megtec dryers, WPC controls, QuadTech closed-loop color control and Baldwin spray dampening.

Stevens, a fully owned affiliate of BellSouth and the third-largest printer of telephone directories in the U.S., is expanding its press fleet with a double-circumference KBA Compacta 818 planned for its 180,000-sq.ft. facility in Birmingham, AL.

Between its two production sites, Stevens produces more than 56 million directories per year (more than 570 titles) including Yellow Pages, companion and midi-directories, inline diecut and folded tabs and specialty catalogs. At present, production is handled by two KBA Commander (tower) coldset presses (two webs through 16 couples or three webs through 24 couples), three KBA Commander Common Impression Cylinder (CIC) coldset presses, one Harris M-1000 38´´ double-web heatset press and one sheetfed press, an 8-color, 40´´ Mitsubishi Diamond 3000TP Tandem Perfector.

The new twin-web Compacta 818 has a 45½´´ cylinder circumference, a 75´´ maximum web width and speed of over 2,953 fpm. The press will be configured with Patras A automatic reel handling, two Pastomat RC reelstands, two infeed units, four printing units (which will feature semi-automatic plate changing), a superstructure for four ribbons and a P5-T directory folder. A color measurement and control system will assure uniform print quality in 2/2 with two webs or 4/4 with one web. Production start-up is scheduled for April 2007. While BellSouth doesn't break out revenues, Stevens employs nearly 600 people, about half of them in Alabama.

Transcontinental, which is the largest printer in Canada and the sixth-largest in North America ($1.9 billion in annual sales), continues press installations and purchases as part of a major capital investment in its printing operations that was launched in 2004.

“It became very obvious to us at the most recent Drupa show that the wider press technology was the direction to take,” says Jacques Grégoire, senior VP for the printer's Book Group. “All the press manufacturers were talking about more output per man, per hour. Web widths of 70´´ or 76´´ allow you to output twice as many pages as older 38´´ presses with the same manning. That, along with technologies such as auto registration, closed-loop color, higher speeds and auto plating, made it very advantageous for us to go to the wider presses.

“We also needed to find ways to take costs out of our process and the wider web press with new technologies was the solution,” Grégoire says. “In school textbooks, for example, one of these new presses can print nearly the equivalent of three older presses.”

In June, Transcontinental installed what Goss bills as the world's first web press equipped to complete 4-color job changeovers without stopping for a makeready.

The 64-page Goss Sunday 4000 press system that went into the company's Beauceville, Canada, facility, includes eight Automatic Transfer (AT) printing units. Operators can prepare four idle units for a new job while the other four units are printing. They can then execute a four-color job change without stopping the press by bringing the idle units on impression and simultaneously taking the units printing the previous job off impression. Bypassing the AT function allows printing of up to eight colors.

The AT on-the-run print transfer capability is designed to reduce the paper waste, operator effort and downtime associated with conventional makereadies.

Goss Sunday technology makes possible the Automatic Transfer concept. Because cylinders on the gapless Sunday presses do not require bearers, they can be mounted in pivot boxes to achieve the wide blanket-to-blanket throw off necessary for the web to pass through idle units without being diverted.

Autoplate, a fully automatic plate-changing option, complements the AT feature, reducing the time and operator effort needed to change plates on idle printing units.

Transcontinental is utilizing the new AT press primarily for high-quality, 4-color book applications.

“Print runs have been dropping significantly and will continue to drop as versioning and personalization increase and as publishers decline to take the risk of printing large quantities of books, putting them in a warehouse and waiting for them to sell,” Grégoire says. “So this new technology makes it a lot easier for us to do the versioning and plate changes and shorter runs. On the old presses, no one would think of book runs under 50,000 to 75,000, but with today's web presses we can go down as low as 2,000 to 3,000 and still have the benefits of a web folder at the end and significantly lower waste.”

In the spring, Transcontinental also installed 48-page, non-AT-equipped Goss Sunday 4000 press systems at facilities in Owen Sound and Boucherville, Canada, to produce magazines, catalogs, directories and other commercial products.

While upgrading its book, magazine and directory operations, Transcontinental is not neglecting its flyer and insert business. The company has announced that it will install a new eight-unit KBA Compacta 618 double-circumference, heatset commercial press as part of a $23 million upgrade to its facility in Saint-Hyacinthe, Canada, that specializes in the printing of flyers and inserts. The new press is scheduled to start operating in the spring of 2007.

“This investment reflects the growth in our flyer and insert activities for major national chains as well as non-traditional and highly specialized advertisers,” says Luc Desjardins, Transcontinental president/CEO. “The new KBA press will not only boost capacity and production efficiency, but will also give us much greater flexibility during peak production times.”

The 45,000-iph Compacta 618 can be used as two separate four-unit presses or in tandem as one eight-unit machine. With a 42´´ cylinder circumference and a 66¼´´ maximum web width, it will be erected inline with: automatic reel supply system, two Pastomat RC reel stands, two infeed units, eight printing units with semi-automatic plate changing, two thermal air dryers, two chill roller stands, a variable superstructure for a maximum of eight ribbons, and two P5 pin folders with one ribbon stitcher apiece.

One folder also will have a double parallel fold and delta fold capability.

www.gossinternational.com, kba-usa.com and manroland.com