A cocktail of control and automation upgrades will breathe new life into the DGM press at the heart of Washington State community media group Sound Publishing.
Swedish specialist DCOS has been engaged for the contract which combines life time extension of press controls and drives with productivity and automation upgrades, and the company's Mattias Andersson says they're in their element: "These types of projects are our strength."
He says discussions with Sound operations director Larry Babcock (pictured) and his team have been a very interesting process: "Our ideas of making printing more of an automated process will become reality in this project," he says.
Based in Everett, in the US northwest Pacific region, Sound Publishing plays a major role as one of the largest community media organisation in the state. It was founded in 1987 as Whidbey Press Newspaper Group with three publications, and has grown steadily over the years - mainly through acquisition - and now operates almost 50 newspaper titles of its own.
A new press facility was established in 2007, consolidating six smaller print shops, and a four-year-old DGM press of eight towers and two folders was acquired and became the flagship of the operation. Automation included Indramat unit shaftless drives, AR60 splicers, remote inking and auto registration. By 2015, a review found that while the press was in good mechanical condition, electrical systems would need replacement.
Babcock says the operation is unusual in several respects, including its more than 600 start-ups a month. "We also run a three-across format on single-width press, which adds some complexity to reach good presetting and efficiency," he says.
Sound Publishing and DCOS spent about a year evaluating different solutions and their corresponding ROI calculations, and placed an order this August. The project will include a new press control system (partly utilising existing I/O structure), new control stations, a DCOS motion controller to replace the Indramat CLCs, a partial drive upgrade, and integration and upgrade of the remote inking system. The work starts in January 2017, and will be carried out on a tower-by-tower basis while the press is in normal production. It will be DCOS' tenth system installation in the US.