QI Press Controls has shown its markless IDS colour control system in operation at an open day in Chemnitz, Germany.
Technical director Erik Hofmann welcomed 50 guests at the innovative ‘Freie Presse’ plant. A total upgrade of the newspaper’s plant commissioned this year includes new workflow technology to produce newspapers to ISO 12647-3 with minimal manpower.
During the project ‘Freie Presse’ replaced a 12-tower manroland Uniman installed in 1993 with a new six-tower 6/2 Colorman XXL satellite running six 2010 mm webs into two folders. The recto-verso full-colour webs are automatically set, controlled and adjusted by the IDS systeem.
The site also uses manroland’s APL automated plate loading, fed from Kodak planteneters equipped with Nela plate-benders and transport. Aurosys AGV’s supply paper to the reelstands, and all the elements including IDS are overseen and controlled by manroland’s Printnet workflow and Pecom systems.
An automated Ferag mailroom had been installed in 2008.
Erik Hofmann emphasised that thnis was not simply a press replacement, but ‘Freie Presse’s’ refurbished printing and distribution operation should become ‘future-proof’, able to resist the growing pressure on the printed news and advertising media.
While the publisher gave total project-responsibility to manroland, a decisive influence was the strong subcontractors’ input, with QI integrating its IDS into manroland’s Printnet-Pecom network. Production of a sample supplement required 112 printing plates, and with blank positions covered with blank plates, 192 plates had to be hung on two towers.
Apart from the physical robotisation requirement, it was clear that full-colour image data needed to be processed quickly to set the 48 ink fountains on the Colorman. One operator controlled each tower, including monitoring the folder.