Baldwin Technology Co. Inc. extended its relationship with international newspapers with the completion of two upgrade projects at the United Daily News in Taipei, Taiwan, and The West Australian in Perth.

The United Daily News, which has a daily circulation of 1.2 million, invested $1 million in a spray dampening system that will be retrofitted to the company’s six Harris presses to help increase efficiency and improve print quality.

The United Daily News also prints five other daily full-color newspapers. It installed 138 Baldwin LithoSpray spray dampeners on its Harris presses.

The presses consist of 24 color printing units and the LithoSpray system replaced the Harris brushing dampeners to help cut costs and reduce paper waste.

Tomas Liu, United Daily News’ vice president, said that over the past year and a half competition for advertising revenue intensified due to the current economic climate.

“In response, our strategy has been to improve the print quality of our newspapers and increase production efficiency, while remaining as cost effective as possible,” he said. “The upgrade of Baldwin’s LithoSpray is helping us do this.”

LithoSpray uses a nozzle and control system to apply water necessary to uniformly dampen the printing plate. The system is designed to help reduce start-up waste and use of inks, fountain solution and energy.

Liu commented that the newspaper experienced benefits since the installation in October.

“Print quality has definitely improved and the whole process is so much easier than before … we’re in discussion regarding a further order.”

New blanket cleaners at The West Australian

West Australia Newspapers Ltd., owner of The West Australian (Monday-Friday, 227,117; Saturday, 389,226) completed the installation of Baldwin’s Impact Global automatic blanket cleaning system. The new blanket washing system is part of a $14 million press upgrade of the second oldest newspaper in Australia.

The Impact system will be fitted to five new press extensions. The press upgrade includes an additional four color print tower for each of the five Goss presses to increase color capacity.

The two Headline and three Metroliner double-wide systems consist of a total of 48 printing units, 30 printing couples fitted with Impact blanket cleaners, 23 half decks, two satellite units and eight 3:2 twin folders.

“In recent years there has been a quantum leap in safety awareness in the industry,” said Ron Allardice, production and operations manager. “A great concern of West Australian Newspapers has been to reduce the risk of repetitive strain injuries to our staff and improve the general environment of our pressroom. The environmental efficiency and safety of Baldwin’s Impact system is therefore vital to us.”

Baldwin’s Impact blanket cleaning technology uses Preprac wash cloth rolls. The rolls are imbibed with an environmentally safe washing agent contained in the roll, thus eliminating solvent handling.