Web offset

The insolvency administrator of manroland AG i.I., Werner Schneider, and the L. Possehl & Co. mbH, Lübeck, signed the contract for the acquisition of the web offset press business located in Augsburg. Therefore, the continuation of the business is long-term assured.

The business taken over by Possehl is to be conducted in the newly founded “manroland web systems GmbH”. Uwe Lüders, Chairman of the Board of the Possehl group, preliminary takes over the management of the company.

Uwe Lüders is being supported by a management team of five. Peter Kuisle, Vice President Sales for many years, leads the service and sales divisions, complemented by the technical division led by Dieter Betzmeier. Franz Gumpp is responsible for the production and purchasing division. Company development and human resources management are carried on by Dr. Daniel Raffler. Dirk Rauh is in charge of the financial department. With this management team the new company stands for a high degree of stability and experience as well as innovations.

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The Web Offset Champion Group (WOCG) are releasing some of its best practice guides in downloadable formats, and introducing accompanying posters. The first titles in this format are “Roll to Web Processing” and “Web break Diagnosis”.

The 36-page guides are available in two versions a screen-consultable format with 2-pages to view, or as a downloadable printing file.

“Our goal with this initiative is to make best practice information widely available to the global printing industry,” said Prof. Tim Claypole, joint managing director of WOCG. He adds “the downloadable posters are a unique new complimentary format. Their content has been developed from the guides and provides at-a-glance reference to key practices. The PDF format allows for them to be printed on either digital proofing systems or by other digital printing in a format that can range up to A1 size.”

These Posters and Guides are available in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian editions. ...

The latest edition of PrintCity’s Webline magazine, edition winter 2011 / spring 2012, is now published and celebrates 10 years of success in the web printing market. Participating PrintCity Alliance members are manroland, MEGTEC, Océ, Procemex, Sun Chemical and UPM.

Featured Webline Articles

The headline title for this latest Webline magazine edition is Tune-Up Your Web Press, setting the scene for the shared PrintCity Alliance web printing hot topic attractions at drupa in 2012. This edition includes the following articles:

• Upgrades & Retrofits/Print Quality Audit/SUM-IT Training/Remote Web Monitoring
• Digital Meets Offset Power
• UWWO (Ultra Wide Web Offset) Installations
• VAPoN (Value Added Printing of Newspapers) Case Studies
• New PrintCity project reports available
• Joint WPCF/PrintCity drupa Environmental Conference – May 10, 2012

Webline Magazine Pedigree

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A new SUM-IT interactive training course for web printing managers is launched by PrintCity Alliance members Sun Chemical, UPM and manroland, to improve process understanding and improve economic operating efficiency. 

The first interactive training seminar called Improving heatset print productivity will take place on November 22/23 in Augsburg, Germany using the facilities of manroland and UPM, plus trainers from all three companies.

Each SUM-IT seminar will focus on aspects of efficient web printing operations, including cross-process knowledge, press production and energy efficiency, emphasising the financial benefits to participating companies. Seminars will utilise experienced trainers from all three companies and will integrate theory, print simulator sessions and interactive classroom modules.

SUM-IT – First Seminar in Augsburg, November 2011

Registrations are now open for the first SUM-IT seminar on Improving heatset print productivity. Course details are:

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manroland’s newspaper printing systems provide the suitable solution for every demand, everywhere. Latest installations cover Sweden, France, and China with groundbreaking manroland newspaper printing technology replacing older manroland or competitor presses.

Braving the elements to print one of the world’s oldest newspapers
With a REGIOMAN press manroland is presently installing latest technology for one of the world’s oldest newspapers at Pressgrannar AB in Linköping/Sweden: next to other dailies, different freesheets, and tabloid commercial products the REGIOMAN will soon produce the daily Norrköpings Tidningar. It was founded in 1758 which makes it one of the world’s ten oldest newspapers. “To make room for the REGIOMAN we enlarged the pressroom by twelve meters,” says Peter Dahlén, Project Manager at Pressgrannar. “In spite of the very hard and cold winter with sometimes minus 25 degrees Celsius we are perfectly in time with our production schedule,” adds manroland engineer Holger Limmer. The first part of the REGIOMAN with three printing towers and one folder has already been install ...

“This is exactly the right press for printing freaks!” Harald Blendowski, Technical Manager at the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper in Germany, is very enthusiastic about the COLORMAN autoprint. He gazes with pride at the product running through the press. With the extensive automation, something priceless has returned for him in the daily routine of printing: stability and tranquility.

The COLORMAN autoprint series marks the beginning of a generation change in newspaper presses. Driven by the vision of building a fully automated printing system, the COLORMAN autoprint today is technically the world’s number one. This development also changes the printer’s job profile: from an operator to a monitor of the production process. As is the case with every generation change, there are ardent supporters as well as skeptics. “Operation of the press has changed dramatically”, explains Georg Riescher, Executive Vice President Newspaper Printing Systems Business Unit at manroland. “The job of printers and operators is much easier to manage today.”

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Since 1985 the Telegraaf Media Groep N.V. (TMG) has been working with manroland presses. Now TMG wants more and less at the same time: more color, less presses. No problem for the newspaper technology experts from Augsburg.

“After the upgrade TMG’s products will be printed economically and in top quality provided by manroland’s latest technology. We are sure our readers and advertisers will highly appreciate the full color appearance throughout the newspaper,” says Harold Tamminga, Print Director at TMG. The Telegraaf printing plant in Amsterdam produces some 8.5 million newspapers per week. De Telegraaf is the Netherland’s largest morning paper with a daily circulation of around 700,000 copies. In addition they print various other daily and weekly papers. Telegraaf today operates ten TELEMAN presses. Starting in 1985 six so-called TELEMAN presses were installed. The TELEMAN presses are based on the manroland COLORMAN concept but featuring reel splicers and printing units at a 90 degree angle at ground level, at that time with a full color capability of 12.5 percent. In 1991 three additional TELEMAN presses were installed an ...

Alma Media’s printing and distribution company Alma Manu Oy has purchased a COLORMAN autoprint for its new newspaper printing facility in Finnish Tampere, due to be completed in 2012, from manroland AG.

The new printing press COLORMAN autoprint will simultaneously print three seven-day newspapers. It can also be used for extensive daytime production, and, thanks to its high degree of automation, for economic printing of smaller runs than today. The new press can print both broadsheet and tabloid formats.

“We selected manroland as the supplier after a thorough evaluation. Their central competitive advantages were the operational efficiency of the machine and its first-class print quality. For example, the new press will allow us to print the entire run of Aamulehti in three hours instead of the current five. The decision was also affected by our trust in manroland as a long-term, experienced partner,” says Helvi Liukkaala, Managing Director, Alma Manu Oy.

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printservices stands for services and support that guarantees total customer care for the entire life cycle of printing systems. It covers solutions for project management, training, spare and wear parts supply, maintenance, process analysis, upgrades and retrofits, as well as press relocations.

1. Dr. Hoffmann, what does printservices offer your customers?
We see ourselves as a partner to our customers and support them proactively for the entire life cycle of their printing systems. In other words, not only when they have a problem. We work together with customers in a farsighted manner to avoid problems by discussing their needs and goals and, depending on the situation, then offering services such as inspections, check-ups, maintenance contracts, upgrades and retrofits, TeleSupport, workflow analyses, training, and process-related technical assistance. The basis for this is always the availability of spare parts and technicians.

2. Which services are aimed at productivity and production reliability?
The essential aspects for customers are production reliability and the press productivity coming along. TelePresence and Monitoring are ...

The global success story of the 8-page KBA Comet press from Koenig & Bauer is about to gain a new chapter in Central Africa. The first installation in Cameroon is scheduled to come on stream at Société de Presse et d'Editions du Cameroun (SOPECAM) in the capital Yaoundé in autumn this year. Since the initial launch at drupa 1995 – from the very beginning with shaftless drives on the individual subassemblies – the four-high tower press has clocked up around 200 installations with newspaper, semi-commercial and book printers around the world, in many cases in combination with heatset dryers.

Leading media company in Central Africa
Alongside the weekly title WeekEnd Sports & Loisirs, the monthly magazine Nyanga and the weekly supplement Alter Eco, SOPECAM publishes the daily newspaper Cameroon Tribune. With a circulation of 25,000 copies, of which more than half are subscriptions, the most popular daily in Cameroon is published as a bilingual newspaper in English and French. In addition to the company's own products, it is planned to print three further dailies and a diversity of other p ...