Flexo newspaper printing lives on at the Providence Journal in Rhode Island, where GateHouse Media has opted for a further upgrade of its 30-year-old presses.

With three presses dating back to the early 1980s, the plant is the largest flexo site in the US, and prints the country's oldest continuously-published daily newspaper, established in 1829.

The site prints the Providence Journal, editions of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, the Cape Cod Times, the Standard Times (New Bedford), the New London Day and the New York Daily News as well as five other dailies and several weekly titles. The pressline consists of three identical sections, each of eight flexo units - six Windmöller & Hölscher Journalflex units plus two 1990s KBA Colormax towers, eight KBA reelstands and a KBA folder.

EAE controls on the presses have already been the subject of one major upgrade between 2004-2008, when the German maker retrofitted the entire control and automation technology, replacing main and reelstand drives with new AC equipment, and renewing unit controls and consoles, the latter with EAE's Baltic Star series (pictured).

Now QIPC-EAE Americas has announced a further retrofit including new PC hardware and software to replace systems no longer supported by Microsoft. Ten PCs will be replaced with Windows systems to run the three consoles, EAE Info reporting and logging, the EAE Net communication and EAE Service remote maintenance gateway.

The vendor's Ronald Reedijk, managing director of QIPC-EAE Americas, says the upgrade will enable the press to continue operating with "accustomed reliability and efficiency" while guaranteeing the future availability of spare parts and computer upgrades. Technicians will work in narrow time windows to complete the project before the end of the year, without disruption of newspaper production.