NEW ORLEANS — Many newspapers favor a
single-supplier system when it comes to the pressroom
The theory is that the fewer the suppliers, the
fewer the problems.
That is not the case at the New York Daily News,
which is intent on finding systems to help improve its production, taking how
well the system works into consideration more than anything else.
The New York Daily News (Monday – Friday,
716,095; Saturday, 548,380; Sunday, 821,080) has nine five-tower Newsliners from
Goss Graphic Systems.
The New York Daily News is installing a new
press
control system from ABB as part of a project to improve production and quality
at the newspaper.
Photo courtesy of ABB
The newspaper has embarked on a project that to
make production easier and improve the quality of the newspaper, said Michael
Mahfouz, senior director of engineering and maintenance at the Daily News.
Part of the project will be replacing the Goss
Meridian controls on the press with new controls from ABB. The Daily News’
first priority was to find a reliable company with a reliable product.
“We wanted to have a stable company that’s
going to be around, because you expect the controls to last a long time, and you
need that support as the years go by. You don’t want to sign with someone who
decides they’re not going to be in business in two years,” Mahfouz said,
adding that they were looking more to form a partnership than purchase a
product.
The Daily News followed a vendor selection
process and eventually decided that ABB was the best company for its new control
system.
“In the end, we were confident that ABB could
provide the technical expertise to do the job, they had the financial stability
that we were looking for, and they were a good company to partner with to make
this a successful project,” Mahfouz said.
The Daily News purchased ABB’s Master Printing
System 700, nine ABB MPS 730 control consoles and the MPS Production system.
The MPS 700 is designed, according to ABB, to
provide newspapers with maximum product planning flexibility, maximum
utilization of available presses, high-production quality and minimum material
consumption.
Product planning data is transferred to the MPS
700 where it is completed and prepared for preset, when thousands of signals set
the values for the next production run. The system will ensure that those set
points are maintained.
The configuration for that production run is
displayed on the control consoles, and the user can select a page or web and
make necessary adjustments to the web tension, ink and water. Those settings can
also be stored for future use.
The newspaper’s MPS Production system will
allow the pressmen to track activities on the presses. MPS Production interfaces
with the MPS Inform system to track paper roll supply, plate production and
postpress activity.
The Daily News will have an MPS 730 control
console for each of its nine presses. The console features page- and
press-oriented operation, presetting of the press to help minimize waste,
detailed press layouts and information to speed up makeready, reports for
evaluating production, and open interfaces to allow integration with the
newspaper’s network.
All of the ABB systems are slated to be installed
at the New York Daily News in January. After completion of the control systems,
installation of nine Model 80 units from Printing Press Services International
will begin.
The Daily News typically prints a 192-page
tabloid, and Mahfouz said the newspaper would like to run color every day of the
week. However, if the page count climbs above 160 pages, which it does as the
week progresses, the towers have to be split, nullifying any hope of producing a
color newspaper.
The nine press lines were designed to have six
towers, but only five towers were ultimately installed. The purchase of the
Model 80 units will allow the Daily News to print color without having to deal
with a 160-page limit.
The newspaper used the same vendor selection
process as with the controls, considering numerous press manufacturers. Several
vendors were eliminated for various reasons, including the inability to work
with the Daily News on its project or because of the size of the units.
It was a look at the Model 80 at Nexpo 2000 in
San Francisco that most impressed Mahfouz and his staff.
“Last year at Nexpo, we looked at the press and
we were pleased that it answered about all of our design problems that we have
with the existing Goss units,” Mahfouz said.
Some of the items that most impressed the group
were the fact that the Model 80 uses pneumatics rather than hydraulics, an item
on the Newsliners that Mahfouz said has problems; the sidelay mechanism on the
Model 80 is on the operator’s side, rather than the drive side; and the
oscillator on the Model 80 press works, while the oscillator on the Newsliner is
another frequent breakdown, according to Mahfouz.
Mahfouz and his staff then took a trip to PPSI’s
facility in Lancashire, England, where they were further impressed with the
company’s manufacturing of units.
“Cost was also a factor,” Mahfouz added. “It
was a good deal.”
In addition to the control and press units, the
Daily News is hoping to improve the flow in its postpress area with the
installation of a tray sorter system from Motion Systems.
“The mailroom was a major, major source of
downtime. We couldn’t run the presses because we had so many problems in the
mailroom,” Mahfouz said.
The system, which runs at 300 bundles per minute,
will convey, track and control bundles from the nine press lines, 18 tie lines,
25 truck docks and two purge lines. It includes 350 tray carriages, each with a
two-bundle capacity; 25 dock trippers to load bundles from the carriage to the
dock chute; and two purge trippers to load bundles from the carriage to a purge
location.
The tray system is controlled using Motion
Systems’ Sorter Control System, which allows for real-time control and
monitoring of the tray system. SCS is network of servers utilizing Microsoft’s
Cluster Server Technology.
The installation of the tray system is Phase II
of a mailroom project that started in 1999. Phase I consisted of the
installation of new Quipp 400 stackers and bottom wrappers, new MP3 strappers
from Dynaric and new turntables from Samuel Strapping.
ABB supplies the newspaper industry with drive
and control systems including control consoles, computer systems for production
planning & preparation and systems for information management. The systems
are designed to provide maximum utilization of press capacity with minimum
make-ready times, consistently high production quality and minimum consumption
of materials.
