Business News
European first: Austrian newspaper printer installs QuadTechs automated Register Guidance System with fan-out control
Tuesday 02. November 2010 - Vorarlberger Medienhaus Group installs QuadTech's newly enhanced Register Guidance System
Vorarlberger Medienhaus Group , an international media company based in Schwarzach, Austria, has become the first customer in Europe to install QuadTech’s recently enhanced Register Guidance System with fan-out control.
The QuadTech system, with MultiCam register cameras, will be installed on five towers of the 1220 mm wide manroland GEOMAN web-offset press at the Schwarzach plant. The investment is expected to boost productivity of a press that has been producing over five million newspapers and inserts per week since going operational in 1994. The printing operation prints several regional newspapers across Austria, including its own flagship’ daily, Vorarlberger Nachrichten, serving 200,000 readers in the country’s westernmost state.
Automated register guidance and fan-out control will strengthen quality consistency, which until now has posed a challenge to the printer as the paper thicknesses vary, most usually between 45 g/m² and 60 g/m².
With their different stretch characteristics, varying from one roll to the next, the fan-out control automatically compensates for the register error by pressure applied on the web by bustle wheels. This saves the Schwarzach plant’s production team the time penalty of making fan-out corrections manually, a highly labor-intensive operation that required continuous remedial action throughout the production run.
Because the QuadTech controls are based on the ICONTM integrated platform, VMG benefits from a central control station, from which staff can recall and apply stored job setup data for all networked press controls, and monitor each press from a single point. As a result, a press minder can regularly check register accuracy ensuring minimized waste. The MultiCam color register cameras on each tower identify marks down to 0.36 mm (0.014″), at speeds of up to 17.6 m/s (3,500 ft/min), while making up to 30 searches per second. This makes immediate detection of web-tension upsets possible, and enables the press to reach exacting registration tolerances faster, in excess of recognized industry standards. This reduces material waste, especially during the start-up phase of the production run.
Vorarlberger Medienhaus Group has been recognized by the newspaper industry for its commitments to production excellence, with prestigious awards including Newspaper of the Year by the World Congress of Newspapers in 2006 and different innovative online portals. In a bid to reposition itself as a total service provider, the company has broadened its service portfolio to include cross marketing activities, a feat that resulted in the media company achieving the Cross Media award at the IFRA Expo show this month in Hamburg. The Group has expanded into radio, on-line classifieds and telecommunications, and penetrated into Eastern European markets, with media interests in Hungary, Romania and the Ukraine.
Mr. Raimund Meusburger, press room manager to the Vorarlberger Medienhaus Group Schwarzach plant commented: “This investment strengthens our ability to meet customers’ expectations of high quality consistency, in terms of precision register and color representation, and further reduce waste levels. Furthermore, as coldset printers, we can compete more effectively for longer run business that has traditionally been the preserve of heatset suppliers. With the new system installed, we can be sure that every copy is of the highest standard.”