Offset Printing
First Goss Universal 70 newspaper press user expands production capability
Thursday 17. January 2008 - Fourth upgrade in seven years to Ross-shire, Scotland facility
Leading Scottish newspaper publisher, Scottish Provincial Press (SPP), has ordered an extension of its Goss Universal press due to organic growth in demand for colour. The company was the first in the world to install a 70,000 copies per hour Universal press in 1998. The tower extension will be the fourth upgrade in seven years.
Roy Fox, managing director of Scottish Provincial Press, comments, “We were technology pioneers when we installed the original shaftless
Universal 70 newspaper press. At that time we wanted to ensure that our investment was flexible enough to allow us to extend at a later date should the need arise. Very quickly it became apparent that we would require additional capacity.”
The original specification of the press was two four-high towers, each configured for four-over-one colour, and three mono units. The first two upgrades were to increase the colour on each tower to four-over-four colour. The third upgrade in 2004 included an additional four-high, full-colour tower and a mono that was combined with the original mono units to make a fourth four-high tower. This latest upgrade will add a further tower and make the final configuration of the press five four-high towers with one of the towers configured to run either four mono webs as required or one colour web.
Fox continues, “Like many newspaper publishers, we are responding to a demand for greater colour and pagination by our advertisers. We aim to deliver exactly what our customers demand and this need has driven our latest investment providing the additional high-quality colour capacity required at this time.”
The new tower is expected to be installed during the spring of 2008.
The location of the SPP facility, based in the Highlands of Scotland, was a prime consideration when considering a press supplier. Fox explains, “We needed more than anything a company that could support us and that we could rely on. Goss technology has delivered for us time and again, and we have every confidence that this latest tower addition will be installed with the precision and efficiency that we have experienced in previous years.”
Scottish Provincial Press led the way when it installed its original Universal press in 1998 and the facility quickly became a reference site to demonstrate the benefits of the then new single-width Universal technology. Fox confirms, “Over the years we have hosted a number of customer visits on behalf of Goss and also acted as a training facility for press crews from facilities across Europe.”
John Chambers, Goss International sales director for UK and Eire, concludes, “We have worked closely with SPP over a number of years to provide them with a state-of-the-art press that serves their growing readership. The Universal range of presses is the ideal choice for publishers wanting a highly flexible solution that is able to grow as they do. The tower addition at SPP is yet another example of how Goss enhancements give publishers the opportunity to benefit from the latest high-output technology.”
The SPP facility currently prints some 16 titles of which three are freesheets. Titles produced at Dingwall include the John OGroat Journal, Northern Scot, Inverness Courier and the Ross-shire Journal.