New York Times kicks
off new press
12-tower Goss Colorliner part of $150 million plant
consolidation project.
By Chuck Moozakis
Editor-In-Chief
The New
York Times went on-edition with its new Goss International Corp. Colorliner 85
press March 2, capping off the latest phase of its plan to consolidate printing
of its metro editions in College Point, N.Y.
Tom Lombardo, The Times’ vice
president of production, told Newspapers & Technology that press operators
worked closely with Goss commissioning teams in prepping the press.
“There has been exceptional
cooperation by all involved in this fast-track project,” he said.The 4-by-2
Colorliner is configured as 96 towers and 12 towers and equipped with two
double-delivery 2:5:5 folders. It was engineered with a 22-inch cutoff and a
48-inch web width. It has a capacity of 85,000 copies per hour.
It joins five other Colorliner
presses already in operation at the facility.
Photo: Goss International
Goss field service electrical engineers Tim Scott and
Dave Miller in front of The Times’ new Colorliner press.
In addition to going into
production with the press, The Times went live with six palletizing systems from
Schur Packaging Systems Inc. and three 20:1 SLS-2000 inserters from Muller
Martini Mailroom Systems.
MMMS reconfigured The Times’
print roll system and added several other input devices, Lombardo said.
New postpress, prepress
systems
The $150 million project also
included 17 new automated guided vehicles from FMC Technologies; a mix of
rebuilt and new postpress equipment from Quipp Systems Inc. and six violet
computer-to-plate systems and associated hardware and software from Agfa.
The Colorliner itself was
bolstered with semi-automatic plate loading, a Q.I. Press Controls registration
system, a technotrans spraybar dampening system and Baldwin Technology Co. Inc.
blanket washers.
In conjunction with the
commissioning of the new Colorliner, Goss trimmed the web widths of the plant’s
other presses as part of The Times move to shrink its web width from 54 inches
to 48 inches, a project that concluded last summer.
The Times in fall 2006 tapped
Goss to provide it with the new press as part of a plan to beef up College Point
and shut down a neighboring print facility in Edison, N.J.
The paper said it expects to
save more than $40 million annually by consolidating operations and narrowing
its web width.
Lombardo said the shutdown of
the Edison facility — which housed six 10-unit Goss Colorliner presses — remains
on schedule.
|
Philly begins
printing Times
Philadelphia Newspapers LLC last month became the 25th site to print and
distribute The New York Times under terms of a new agreement between the
two publishers.
The Times said the agreement would enable it to extend weekday and
Sunday home delivery to readers in the Philadelphia area as well as
better serve existing markets in the surrounding area.
PNL purchased two Goss International Corp. color towers from The Times’
soon-to-be-mothballed plant in Edison, N.J., in order to handle the
contract.
PNL just wrapped up a yearlong project that reduced the web width of its
nine Goss Colorliner presses from 50 inches to 48 inches. It also
upgraded controls, using software from Rockwell Automation, and migrated
to computer-to-plate, installing systems and software from Krause and
Fujifilm Graphic Systems USA, respectively. |
