May
 2004

MAN Roland Inc. scored its second major add-on tower contract in three months as the Chicago Tribune picked the vendor to add 19 eight-couple units to its existing pressline.

The ColorMAN units will enable the Tribune to essentially double its color capacity, according to Tony Hunter, vice president and director of operations at the newspaper.



Left to right, The Chicago Tribune’s Dan Opat, production director; Judy Oliver, director of engineering and facilities; Michael Ross, manager, operations analysis; Tom Steck, maintenance manager; Thomas Beilke, manager, engineering services and Tony Hunter, vice president and director of operations. The newspaper will install 19 towers to boost color and print capacity.
Photo: Newspapers & Technology

Adding color was “the major driver,” Hunter said. “It’s a strategic move. We believe the demand for color will continue to grow.”

Hunter said the project includes installing three-high formers that will give the paper additional sectioning capabilities, in the process providing readers with more timely news and content.

Minimize collect runs

The units will let the Tribune (daily, 680,879; Sunday, 1.026 million) minimize the need to run collect, as is sometimes now required, to accommodate existing color demands.

MAN Roland is acting as general contractor, overseeing the installation and integration of the towers to the Tribune’s existing 22-year-old Goss Metroliner presses. The paper has 10 presses.

The contract calls for all 19 towers to be commissioned by the fall of 2006. Masthead International will handle the towers’ installation.

The Tribune is also looking to add new press controls and digital inkers in the near future, Hunter said. CGI will supply the inkers.

Nine of the Tribune’s Goss presses will be bolstered by two ColorMAN towers, one installed at each end, while the 10th Goss Metroliner will get one tower.

Improving capabilities

Once the project’s completed, the Tribune will be able to print 80 pages, with 32 pages of color. The addition of a third level former section on each of the presses will also let the paper produce a six-section paper in straight mode.

Today, the paper typically prints 64 pages with 16 pages of color.

“This project will improve our capabilities significantly,” Hunter said.

The Tribune’s decision follows a similar move by its sister Los Angeles Times to add MAN Roland towers to its pressline (see Newspapers & Technology, January 2004).

“We did our due-diligence work together,” Hunter said about working with Times’ production executives, “but the Tribune’s decision was made independently.

“In this case, MAN Roland’s proposal provided the best value relative to our goals,” he said.

As with many papers trying to meet the demands of their customers, Hunter said the Tribune wants to get the presses running as soon as possible (see related story, page 12).

The tentative schedule calls for contractors to take out one pressline at a time while the new equipment is being added. Because the Tribune’s Freedom Center production facility has plenty of access and room, little work will have to be performed in order to accommodate the new towers, according to Tom Beilke, the Tribune’s engineering manager.

“The towers will fit into the existing footprint,” he said. While some additional mono units will be stacked on top of units in the middle of the Tribune’s press, that reconfiguration won’t pose any significant challenges, he said.

The addition of the third level former will force the Tribune to rework some of the production facility’s structural steel, but Beilke doesn’t foresee any problems there, either.

Not ‘difficult’

“We don’t view this project as being extremely difficult,” he said, adding that Tribune managers sought to ensure that any new towers would mesh easily with the newspaper’s existing equipment.

That extends to integrating software that will be used to run the presses and associated prepress systems, said Production Director Dan Opat.

“We have some very good project managers at the Tribune,” Opat said. “We’ve studied (software integration). It’s a critical part of the project and one we believe we can manage effectively.”

MAN Roland is equally sanguine about the project’s timetable, said Vince Lapinski, chief operating officer of web operations.

“Our add-on experts have a depth of experience in completing extension projects in Europe, most recently at the Suddeutsche Zeitung in Germany. The Chicago Tribune order is an opportunity for us to prove how well we can handle sophisticated installations here in North America.”

Lapinski said project managers from MAN Roland will be assigned permanently to the Tribune project beginning this fall.

Now that the Tribune has mapped out its press capability needs, the newspaper will focus on coordinating other capital initiatives, said Judy Oliver, director of engineering and facilities and the project director overseeing the tower addition.

“We’re always looking at improvements in processes, including equipment and technology. Our decisions on future investments will be driven by our company’s strategic goals,” she said.