SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Syracuse Post-Standard successfully entered full production on its new WIFAG presses by July 30, and immediately began planning on going into full production with flying plate changes this fall.

“We’re like an anaconda; we have to digest what we’ve swallowed,” said production director Michael Stern, following regular press runs of 72,500 copies per hour.

The press, with the only six-high towers in the U.S., was purchased to add color, improve the quality of the newspaper (daily, 122,659; Sunday, 177,729) and shorten the press run.

So far, so good, but not where Stern wants to be.

“We’re not the best color in the country. But we’re not the worst. We’re still learning,” he said.

Charles Piedmonte, press manager of The Syracuse Post-Standard, monitors the WIFAG OF 370 press control on the second floor of the building. He will oversee this fall’s “flying plate change” for the entire press run.
Photo courtesy of WIFAG
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The Syracuse plant, located downtown adjacent to the newspapers building on Salina Street, features several bells and whistles: The WIFAG OF 370 press with its totally shaftless drives, it’s two six-high tower units, two folders with formers arranged on three levels, two-person operation and flying plate change, or page change capability; new ABB controls (including an additional control desk on the ground floor), computer-to-conventional-plate or computer-to-plate, five autopasters series PR 2/C, three split-arm pasters and a Jervis B. Webb automatic storage and retrieval system for roll handling.

Since the press was commissioned Dec. 31, 2001, The Post-Standard has printed more products on it, but maintained its 20 Goss letterpresses as a backup and special section printer. Now all five editions of the paper are printed on the WIFAG, including the television guide and color comics.

One of the reasons for the six-high towers was the footprint: Newhouse committed to staying downtown but there wasn’t room for a wider building.

“The six-high towers provided for a very compact press,” said Joe Ondras, WIFAG’s vice president of sales. “The 12-couple tower is only 27 feet high, only slightly taller than a conventional four-high, but with 50 percent more capacity.”

He said one web can be printed in four colors on both sides and two additional webs in black at a speed of up to 72,500 copies per hour in straight mode. It amounts to a 48-page newspaper with 16 pages in four-color and 32 in black on one tower in collect mode.

“We did not have the room here to build two presses,” Stern said of the $40-million plant investment. “To maintain deadlines we would have to purchase two presses or a single press that could do the same thing.”

Stern believes the investment, some $25 million, was cost effective because he purchased, one, not two presses.

Ironing out the details

Bugs, of course, remain. Would it be newspaper printing if there weren’t? Stern, calling the operation “a work in progress,” said the prepress area needs improving, specifically with digital workflow, and that the postpress operation has not always kept up with the new iron when thicker newspapers are produced.

Still, to witness a press run and see an operator, maybe a technician wander the press decks, around when the operation is up to full production is remarkable. The plate room and main control inhabit a spotless, quiet third-floor room walled with glass. The presses hum out front; Ferag grippers spin through the copy check stand in the platemaking and main control room and down the ceiling of a hallway just outside before plunging into the postpress area a floor below.

As visitors looked on, a pressman worked on his registration, pressing the simple plastic-covered controls that run this 650-ton mountain of machinery. The new special section had run up to 9,000 copies before the desired quality level had been achieved.

It’s a good-looking newspaper. Clear, bright color. No rub-off or ghosting; ink and water are balanced without the telltale wet paper feeling. The press control system will remember the perfect balance that the pressman finally achieved in full digital memory. The next time, performance will be better. But the timing it took to achieve it is not what Stern wants. He’s looking for a 2- to 3-percent “wastage” sub-quality level out of his new equipment.

Stern is quick to state that he isn’t trying to hold Syracuse up as an example for other newspapers, only that the press is well-suited for colorful, zoned editions. In addition, WIFAG officials do not hold the OF 370 out to be the cheapest press available and that papers with huge black and white press runs can buy less expensive presses.

Employees must also adapt to the higher technology. He is not worried about how his people will react to this fall’s flying plate change because of the extensive preparation.

“This is not pilot technology,” he said. “Since page changing is already in the market, we have to teach them how to operate it.”

His worry is more electronic; if a break in all that fiber optics and circuitry occurs, it can be hard to pinpoint.

“I’ve been there and done that and it ain’t pretty,” Stern said of electrical problems, none of which have cropped up yet.

WIFAG’s Flying Plate Change

The WIFAG OF 370 is best known for its ability to change plates while the presses are running. To date, only The Dallas Morning News has run a flying plate change, also on the WIFAG press, though it had been run successfully in Montpellier, France, at the Midi Libre. The Tulsa (Okla.) World was the first U.S. newspaper to go totally shaftless — couple-to-couple electronic shaftless drives, as opposed to unit-to-unit drive units — but the paper did not have a need for printing multiple editions and did not purchase the plate changing unit.

The flying plate change allows a newspaper to pull back the printing blankets on one unit, while the web runs through a different unit. Plates are changed on the suspended unit. The ABB MPS 750 (760 system for the shaftless drives) press control system is then designed to get the spinning blankets on the suspended unit up to the exact speed of the running unit. When the rollers hit the web, the press is designed to “lose” only 20 papers before both units are back in register.

The key to the system is the totally shaftless press. All of the electric motors need to be synchronized in order to pull off the plate change.

Syracuse technicians have visited Dallas and worked closely with the press there in preparation for the fall rollout of the flying plate change.

“In Tuesday’s main edition, we are running what we call a ‘fly page’ for one of our zones,” said The Morning News Production Director, Tom Stamper. “This additional fly page contains news and advertising content for this zone.

“For example, the page count for the main edition may be 56 pages. However, in this particular zone, the page count would be 58 pages. We would then drop the page count and plate without stopping the press.”

The Morning News is also changing suburban zones on the Classified pressrun every night. For example, they may wrap an eight-page Arlington section around the classified and change to an eight-page Grand Prairie zoned edition without stopping the press.

The WIFAG press in Dallas, one of eight, produces a fifth of The Morning News’ production, Stamper said.

“We designed it from the ground up to be a shaftless press. We stack 100 tons on one spot in a six-high tower. It is now an electronic machine instead of a mechanical one. Our customer, Steve Barlow (production manager) of the Tulsa World, suggested that now this new press is a computer that prints,” Ondras said.

Stern said other manufacturers have talked about forms of shaftless, plate-changing presses, but “WIFAG was the only one who could demonstrate the flying plate change in production.”