Press Controls Add Versatility

From shaftless press drives to press-control panels, production executives found numerous products on the show floor to jazz up existing presses.

Harland Simon of Oak Brook, Ill., offered the Prima 4000, a press-control panel that uses a 21-inch touch screen for press production, print quality, job information and diagnostics. The control panel also handles press folders, which the company said can reduce make-ready and thus newsprint waste. The Chicago Sun-Times purchased 13 Prima control panels recently for its Goss Newsliner presses.

Dauphin Graphic Machines Inc. exhibited a larger-than-life mock-up of a control panel for its 1030 press folder.

Many exhibitors touted their products as both user-friendly and capable of reducing staffing levels--characteristics that newspaper executives welcomed.

"We cannot find people to manage pressrooms and mailrooms; we can't find them to operate equipment. The technical advances are just phenomenal, and getting people to work these things is probably one of the biggest challenges we've got," said Tom Shafer, director of production technologies for Thomson Newspapers in Stamford, Conn.

Indramat of Hoffman Estates, Ill., exhibited precision, electronically synchronized drives that offer users the flexibility and "increased throughput" of shaftless presses. The company manufactures shaftless printing units as well as retrofits for a modular shaftless configuration of existing presses.

PC Industries of Glenview, Ill., demonstrated Graphic-Vision GV-300. This video web-inspection system allows workers to store lateral and linear web positions for future reference, zoom in on potential trouble spots and view registration from front to back.

Workers can set and adjust ink-fountain keys by page number using AutoPage by Essex Products Group of Centerbrook, Conn.

TechNews Volume 4, Number 4: July/August 1998

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