Leader Printing, a South Dakota-based commercial printer and publisher of the Madison Leader, fortified its color capabilities after commissioning an add-on tower from Web Press Corp.

Leader went on-edition with a WPC Quad-Stack earlier this summer, said Randy Palli, pressroom manager. “I’m a stickler for quality,” he said, “and some of the work we wanted to do” couldn’t adequately be produced on Leader’s decades’-old six-unit Goss Community press.

“Our waste was high and we wanted to pursue additional 4-color work but we were concerned about quality,” he said.

Pressroom Manager Randy Palli at Leader Printing's Web Press Quad-Stack tower. The unit was engineered to attach to the printer's Goss Community press at right angles to save space.
Photo: Jeff Boldt
 

Belying Madison’s population of 6,200, Leader prints dozens of
publications besides the five-day-a-week flagship newspaper, including
16 area weeklies, college and high school newspapers and a monthly
magazine with a circulation of 35,000, Palli said. All told, Leader
prints more than 240,000 copies a week, ranging from newspapers to
specialty publications.

Upgrading the Goss press with a new unit or tower wasn’t feasible because of space and foundation issues, Palli said.

All the color

Instead, Leader opted to buy a modular Quad-Stack tower, installing the unit at right angles to the Goss press. Because of the tight constraints, crews tucked the rollstand under the Quad-Stack. The press went on-edition in July, just weeks after it was installed.

In the almost four months since the tower was commissioned, color and registration quality is up, Palli said. “We’re now putting all of our 4-color work through the Quad.”

Startup waste, meantime, is down to around 250, less than half of Leader’s waste before the unit was commissioned.

Leader installed the tower in the middle of the Community line, Palli said. “There were no webbing issues; everything worked fine,” he said.

Crews can operate the unit from either the tower or the folder.