Offset Printing

Chunichi Shimbun and Mitsubishi Mark Successful Start-Up of Gifu Plant Project

Monday 03. January 2011 - Japanese publisher opts for lean production with Mitsubishi DIAMONDSTAR and DIAMOND EYE

Chunichi Shimbun Company, Ltd., headquartered in Nagoya City and publisher of The Chunichi Shimbun and The Tokyo Shimbun, hosted a celebration on April 16, 2010 to commemorate the completion and start-up of its renovated printing plant in Gifu City. The
event was attended by Mr. Bungo Shirai, Chairman, and Mr. Torao Oshima, President,
both of Chunichi Shimbun, along with Mr. Ken Watabe, General Manager of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Paper & Printing Machinery Division. All in attendance expressed their highest expectations of the renovated Gifu Plant, the highly automated Mitsubishi 4 x 2 “DIAMONDSTAR” presses and the state-of-the-art in-line closed-loop print quality control system “DIAMOND EYE.”
Chunichi Shimbun was established in 1942 through the consolidation of two newspaper companies – The Shin Aichi Shimbun (established in 1888) and The Nagoya Shimbun (established in 1906). In 1967, the company acquired The Tokyo Shimbun. The Chunichi Shimbun now ranks among Japan’s largest regional newspapers and its total circulation is approximately 3.5 million copies.
In 2007, Chunichi Shimbun decided to renovate its Gifu Plant and purchased four Mitsubishi
4 x 2 “DIAMONDSTAR” presses for this site. The project also involved relocating eight existing tower printing units from the Gifu Plant to eight press lines at its other printing plants. During
the press selection process, Chunichi Shimbun became favorably impressed with the proven advantages of the “DIAMOND EYE” system and elected to install the system on eleven of its press lines.
The “DIAMOND EYE” in-line closed-loop print quality control system for newspaper printing is the world’s first automatic color matching process for color printing and the most successful system in the world with more than fifty installations. This new technology, which compares target density data based on plate making data to real-time print density measured by image sensors on the printing press and then adjusts density accordingly, has made it possible to perform fully automatic, high quality printing throughout the production run. This automatic capability produces uniform color printing at all times, thus greatly improving printing quality while saving energy and reducing costs, such as less paper waste.
Based on the successful system installations of the “DIAMOND EYE,” Mitsubishi has recently developed the “DIAMOND EYE Jr.” – an in-line print quality defect detection system, which can be readily upgraded to the “DIAMOND EYE” at any time. The major difference between the two systems is that the “DIAMOND EYE Jr.” detects and ejects defective copies by comparing target density data based on good copy to the actual print density acquired by the image sensors, while the “DIAMOND EYE” controls and adjusts density by comparing target data based on plate making data to the actual print density acquired by the image sensors.
The Mitsubishi 4 x 2 “DIAMONDSTAR” presses installed at the Gifu Plant are rated at 90,000 cph, have a cutoff of 546mm (21.5 in) and handle web widths up to 1,626mm (64 in). Each press is configured with three 4/4 tower printing units, one 2/2 tower printing unit, one 1/1 tower printing unit, one 3:2 & 2:2 double rotary folder, five reelstands and future provisions for one 4/4 tower printing unit and one reelstand. The presses are operated by the Mitsubishi press control system with automated features that include press presetting, ink resetting with CTP interface, color register control, dual web tension control and the “DIAMOND EYE.”