Baden, Switzerland – 17th May, 2006: ABB has today announced that it has been selected to provide new automation, control and management systems for two existing MAN Colorman newspaper presses at Solprint in Subingen, Switzerland. Solprint prints the Solothurner Zeitung with four regional editions, 10 weekly newspapers and various other products including telephone directories. The project includes the replacement of the existing control systems from two different German suppliers, and also an extension of one of the presses with additional colordeck units. The current configuration at Solprint consists of two presses in one press line. The first press has a folder, two reelstands and two 10 cylinder satellite printing units; the second press has a folder, three reelstands and three x nine cylinder satellite printing units, one of which is extended with a colordeck. In the course of the project colordecks will be added to the other two printing units. Hans Hirscher, ABB's Sales Manager for retrofit systems, who is also managing the project, comments: “We are delighted to be awarded this contract. It is a further example of how ABB's solutions, and our experience with many successful retrofit projects - in particular those that involve press reconfiguration - are being recognized. “Such projects extend the useful life of existing press investments and provide ABB's customers with a fast ROI. For these reasons retrofits are becoming commercially attractive for many newspaper printers.” The retrofit work by ABB will be carried out in four phases to ensure that production is never interrupted. In the final configuration the presses will be operated by four of ABB's MPS Control Consoles. One Production Management System – Two Newspaper Printers: Solprint, which is owned by Mittelland Zeitungsdruck AG, Switzerland, a joint venture between AZ Medien AG and Vogt-Schild Medien AG, works closely with another newspaper printer, AZ Print in Aarau, also in Switzerland. AZ Print runs WIFAG OF790 and OF370 presses, both capable of 48 pages in full color. The new ABB automation solution includes an MPS Production press management system that will be used to manage production at both sites. A new server cluster with three clients will be installed in Aarau; meanwhile Subingen will take delivery of an additional client that will be connected to the Aarau server. In addition, the ABB MPS Inform production analysis system in Aarau will have both hardware and software upgrades that will include a new Maintenance module for the coordination and logging of all maintenance work at the sites. According to Solprint, there were several factors that motivated it to order the retrofit project. These included the need to: increase the production capacity to 48 pages with full color; improve production stability through the use of modern, state-of-the-art control systems; and create a uniform operation for both press sections in Subingen. The commissioning work will commence in June of this year and the retrofitted presses will both be in production by November 2006.