LETTERS

The rectifier failure cited in the story from The Daily Herald in Provo, Utah, ("For Want of a Part," Jan/Feb 1996) brings to mind a similar situation we encountered about 15 years ago.

We suffered a similar blown rectifier on an Urbanite press right at the start of a press run. We isolated the problem within 15 minutes, but couldn't find a heavy-duty 110-volt rectifier on hand or anywhere in town. Without the DC drive, the dampener motors wouldn't run.

It occurred to us that right beside the press, we had the charging unit for our battery-operated fork truck, which operated on 48 volts DC. We then realized we could get an additional 48 volts from the batteries themselves.

Using a couple of jumper cables, we hooked the charger and the fork-truck batteries in series, giving us a workable 96 volts DC.

In less than an hour, we were running. We never had to use the spare rectifier we put on the shelf a few days later.

Josiah P. Rowe III
General Manager
The Free Lance-Star
Fredericksburg, Va.

I put together a small collection of Web sites that would be of interest to folks in our industry (http://www.netcom.com/~horner2/willsweb.html). Your readers are welcome to use it. I'll try to update it as time permits.

To clarify the nature of this project, my Web page is not endorsed by nor related to my employment in any way. It's purely a personal activity that I engage in away from work.

Will Horner
Production Manager
Dow Jones & Co.

Thanks for your cover story on pagination ("Few Tickets To Paradise", Nov/Dec '95).

As someone who has heard the promises that pagination will save work hours and then seen my newsroom (and me) burdened down with even more hours of scooting boxes around a computer screen, I agree with Steuart Dewar that "'Xpress and PageMaker are not perfect." I didn't realize there were modifications available.

David Barnes
Huntington Bureau Reporter
The Journal-Gazette

As a result of recent confusing public information, we believe it is necessary to provide further clarification to KBA's position on the antidumping suit for large newspaper-printing presses (LNPP) that was initiated by Rockwell Graphics Systems in June 1995.

Several critical clarifications are as follows:

1. Relevant Marketplace: For our commercial and publication customers and prospects, this action by Rockwell has nothing to do with commercial or publication presses serving this marketplace.

   The complaint and resulting investigation is limited to large, double-width newspaper presses imported from Germany or Japan. It does not include other machines in the KBA portfolio such as heatset web offset, web or sheetfed gravure, sheetfed offset, Intaglio presses for security printing, telephone directory presses or single-width newspaper presses.

2. Tariff: KBA was arbitrarily assessed an alleged 46.4 percent dumping deposit margin on large newspaper-press imports as a result of KBA's electing to withdraw from the Department of Commerce (DOC) portion of the investigation. There is no substantiation to this margin--it is not derived based on fact. However, it should be noted that KBA has fully cooperated at the International Trade Commission (ITC) in regard to the investigations.

   The reason for our decision to withdraw at the DOC was two fold:

   • First of all, KBA only imported one double-wide newspaper press to the United States from Germany in the last five years. This offset press employed the keyless-anilox-offset process that was available and commercially in production at various KBA sites. This process was not offered at that time by any other press manufacturer. We also believe this one machine hardly represents a material threat to Rockwell, which enjoys an 80 percent market share in the U.S. newspaper-press market.
   • Secondly, the cost to participate in the DOC investigation is astronomical. In fact, the paralyzing effect in time and money that these investigations demand is often reason enough to initiate such a suit.
3. Domestic Manufacture: It became clear to us that, for double-width newspaper presses, any tariff imposed by the DOC was unacceptable to selling newspaper presses in the United States. Therefore, KBA elected to expand the existing U.S. manufacturing platform to include offset newspaper presses principally produced out of our York, Pa., facility. Funds that would otherwise have been utilized to pay significant legal and other costs have been channeled into productive retooling of our facility.
4. Scope: The continued KBA participation in the ITC investigation is evidence of our concern with respect to the fundamental issue of what is included in the scope of a large newspaper-press system. We believe the broad nature of Rockwell's scope argument is nothing more than an attempt to restrict the flexibility of domestic competition. The end result is the customer may have fewer choices, including the economics associated with fewer choices. We will continue to vigorously defend our right as a U.S. manufacturer to procure parts and other components from global manufacturing channels.

In summary, there was nothing sinister behind our choice to redirect resources and approach the U.S. newspaper marketplace in a different manner; to offer German technology and design principally manufactured in the United States. Unfortunately, the decision not to participate at the DOC resulted in a bizarre penalty margin that will only come into play if KBA imports large newspaper presses.

The downstream effects of this suit in the future are unclear. Now that Rockwell is divesting its Graphic Systems division to a New York investment group, will Rockwell maintain any interest in the outcome? Additionally, will the investment partners operate Graphic Systems or merely act as an agent to sell off the business units?

We do know, for the time being, that every large newspaper press imported into the United States from Germany or Japan will be thoroughly investigated regardless of the initial dumping margin assigned. In other words, each and every LNPP importation will be individually analyzed and must stand on its own merit with respect to cost, selling price and actual dumping margin amount that is due. This methodology simply contained too many variables for us to feel that it would be fair and cost-effective to administer.

We believe our newspaper-press strategy of greater American content is a sound one that allows us to continue to provide custom press solutions and offer competitive alternatives to the U.S. newspaper industry.

Scott R. Smith
President and CEO
KBA-Motter Corp.
Web Press Division

Though thought provoking, your article "Something Old, Something New" (March/April 1996) failed to mention one increasingly viable solution to newspapers' production challenges: outsourcing the printing function. For Toronto's Globe & Mail, teaming up with a commercial printer emerged as a superior option to purchasing its own new press. By contracting with Interweb Inc., the Globe & Mail was able to avoid the multimillion dollar investment of a specialized double-width press, not to mention the printing-facility expansion, overhead, upkeep and staffing. This allowed investment in other areas of the company.

From Interweb's perspective, the offer was equally attractive. Purchasing an affordable and ultraflexible four-page press allowed them to profitably produce 210,000 copies of the 64-page Globe & Mail each day in one shift while printing quality commercial work during the other two shifts. Pre-press production for the Globe & Mail is handled early through Interweb's satellite system that receives page information in digital form and sends it directly to the imagesetter. Though this solution requires a paradigm shift in the fundamentals of newspaper production, we feel it will become an increasingly popular alternative for medium-to-large dailies. After all, doesn't it make sense for newspapers to leave production to the printing experts and concentrate on their own strengths--collecting and reporting the news?

Timothy L. Klee
Director, Marketing Services
Heidelberg Harris Inc.
Dover, N.H.

TechNews Volume 2, Number 3: May/June 1996

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