Colour control on Fairfax presses in Canberra and Ballarat – including relocated former Tullamarine towers – is to be upgraded under a deal with QI Press Controls.

The Dutch specialist will make its first twin-camera installations in Australia at the sites later this year and in 2014.

QI’s mRC-3D colour register will replace existing systems on 11 towers of manroland Uniset 75 and relocated Geoman presses at Ballarat, adding cut-off ribbon control for the three heatset webs.
The four-tower Geoman press in the Canberra suburb of Fishwyck – half of which is now dedicated to UV printing – will also get mRC-3D colour register. Motorised bars are being installed on the UV towers for safety reasons, with cut-off ribbon control on the two UV webs.

The Ballarat site – northwest of Melbourne – is being expanded as part of the ‘Fairfax of the future’ programme which sees existing metropolitan print sites at Tullamarine (Melbourne) and Chullora (Sydney) closed by June next year, and work including the newly-tabloid flagship titles relocated to five regional sites.

Press equipment from Melbourne is going to Ballarat and North Richmond (NSW) – where QI is already involved in an upgrade project – as well as to a greenfield site in Auckland, NZ. Ferag and Müller Martini mailroom equipment from Melbourne and Sydney is also being employed at North Richmond and Ballarat, respectively.

QI chairman and managing director Menno Jansen says the order confirms a partnership built over several years: “We paid close attention to the future needs of Fairfax Media in its print operations’ transition to regional centres, and offered solutions that will ensure the company’s manroland presses will deliver optimum performance and print quality for the foreseeable future.”

Fairfax print chief executive Bob Lockley says the Fishwyck installation will occur in “about six months”, while timing for the bigger Ballarat project is the second quarter of 2014.

“This is part of our rationalisation to regional printing sites, and the change in format from broadsheet to compact,” he says. “This includes the New South Wales part of the business for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and part of the Sun Herald, and Ballarat is the Victorian part for The Age and the Australian Financial Review.

“We have relocated products around the group to get the best utilisation of equipment, and are working with our partners – manroland, Ferag, Müller Martini and QI Press Controls – to make the presses as effective and competitive as possible. The transformation from big metro to regional sites was a step we had to take to help secure the future for our newspapers in this changing world.”

He says QI was deemed “the best solution provider” for those presses, “based on their technology, their service in Australia, and the fact that they were price competitive”.

Lockley says the new QI technology will also help Fairfax find extra operational flexibility and ensure print quality in its considerable commercial print business for more than 200 external clients. “The systems will improve quality and consistency in our print products, which is critical, especially for our advertising clients, who wish to see consistency across the group’s products.”