Publishers contemplating second and third-generation press upgrades have been subject to a reality check, prompted by concerns about the future of the printed newspaper (writes Peter Coleman).

It’s realistic to plan for a time when many current print editions are no longer viable, but to fail to upgrade colour capacity and quality is only to hasten that day.

Many publishers – especially in multi-edition markets such as Germany – are opting to replace relatively-sophisticated press systems with new ones to gain savings in labour and material costs. But for some, there is an alternative.

Let’s get this straight: If you’re still printing a predominantly mono newspaper, relieved by only a small proportion of full colour – and many of North America’s ‘what hit us’ publishers are – you need to get a new press.

Or get out of printing, of course. One solution used by the San Francisco Chronicle – even when it was in dire financial straits – was to contract a printer so as to escape its flexo technology.

Don’t even think about buying a secondhand press: Unless it’s got the automation and control technology you need, press makers are likely to make you an offer on new kit that will make the installation and upgrade of pre-owned equipment unattractive.

But yes, you can add automation.

Systems such as automatic colour registration have been earning their keep in paper savings and operator time for years, and deliver one of the quickest returns on investment in the industry.

But as digital technology becomes commoditised and cheaper, new opportunities continue to appear. The list of processes you can control or monitor on your iPad or iPhone seems to grow daily. And the switch from proprietary to standardised platforms for press control systems is also making them cheaper and more capable.

Here are some areas for improvement:

• Colour register and control:

It may be a case of ‘first-in, first-out’ given that early automatic registration systems are typically running on outdated technology. Current systems from companies such as QI Press Controls, QuadTech, Mitsubishi and EAE respond more quickly and do more than just keep plates in register… the same monitoring process can be used to automatically adjust colour density and watch for defects.

A basic is that your (motorised) ink key controls should be able to accept prepress data – the TIFF files used to image plates – and employ it to preset keys before an edition run starts, reducing start-up waste.

• Press control:

Modern systems are programmed to respond or adjust a range of settings – including ink and dampening – to cope with different conditions and as a press speeds up or slows down. The result is fewer gash copies (or fewer poor-quality ones sent out to readers).

Press control is a huge area, and advancements provide for data exchange between prepress, edition management, reporting and other systems.

manroland, with new devices it added to its OneTouch offering last year, also postulates the idea that by taking its tablet-style tool to a production meeting, you’re never stuck for an answer about what’s going on. Or out of the office (via iPhone for that matter).

And there’s the fundamental that if parts for your existing controls are scarce or unavailable, replacing at least some of them with standardised equipment will free up parts for others: The alternative is the press grinding to a halt.

• Drive equipment and folders:

An older press may still have a fully-mechanical drive. Switching to ‘shaftless’ – individual motors on each unit or folder – may be expensive but brings benefits such as the easy isolation of a press unit being replated between editions. In markets where electricity supply is unreliable, modern drive systems can also slow an unexpected stop due to a power outage, avoiding broken webs.

Replacing a folder with a more powerful, potentially automated, one can increase speeds on large products and reduce waste. And don’t forget to provide for the fact that with the prevalence of paper dust, they catch fire: Solutions are available to prevent this disruptive and surprisingly common occurrence.

• Solutions on a plate:

Firstly, if you haven’t got there already, plates imaged from page data (CTP) will be less liable to variables, and are less likely to be out of register. But there’s more: Systems such as ProImage’s PlateRegister solution (of which a version is also available from its parent Agfa) can compensate for a range of irregularities and faults on specific presses, units and cylinders, effectively ‘fingerprinting’ a press.

If you’re lucky, you may be able to look at some form of plateloading, and the issues of sorting and getting plates to the press, all of which saves time with a heavy workload.

Ink ‘optimisation’ software – which works by substituting overprinting colours with black – also does more than save expensive ink: Start-up results are more acceptable sooner, so time and materials are saved.

The list goes on. By focussing mostly on automation, we haven’t discussed unit improvements such as spray dampening, motorisation of ink keys, lateral and circumferential register (if they’re not already there), pumped ink and the like, but they are available for the asking and each will bring a quantifiable benefit.

And need a specific business case.

Last year, I visited one of two DUO print sites in Germany where presses upgraded only three years before were being ripped out and replaced to gain automation benefits including robotic plateloading. Most of the old equipment will be scrapped.

Further north, in Oulu, Finland, a 25-year-old KBA Express has been replaced with state-of-the art manroland kit… but there’s a twist: The old press is being refurbished by Wifag and GAMAG for another Finnish publisher, with a comprehensive control refit.

Wifag, which now owns Solna and has re-emerged into the marketplace, is among press makers placing more emphasis on automation, in this case through acquisitions and group resources.

Nearer home, News Limited will spend much of a multi-million dollar control systems upgrade order on its elderly manroland Newsman presses in Murarrie, Brisbane, the last of an order placed in 1987.

The refit includes some of the upgrades mentioned above – new drives to replace obsolete Reliance systems, closed-loop QI colour controls and the latest manroland control technology – but extending physical colour capacity, deemed adequate and too expensive to upgrade, is not on the list.

Each situation is different, each publisher knows its own situation better than anyone else, and each must present an irresistible business case to compete for funding. A very few of the solutions above don’t require capital – some software services can be delivered by ‘cloud’ – but most do. And while the ROI is frequently compelling, it will need to be justified.