Mortsel, Belgium --  10 July 2007 --  Agfa Graphics today announced that as part of its five-year strategic alliance with The New York Times Company it has completed the installation of :Arkitex Courier and :Arkitex Director. Together, :Arkitex Courier and Director operate as an automated, single transmission and printing solution giving The New York Times newspaper a seamless workflow between its newsroom operations and printing facilities across the United States.
:Arkitex Courier, which is installed in the Times Square location, transmits all of The New York Times’ pages to 22 of its national print sites. A full disaster recovery system is installed at The Boston Globe, owned by the Times Company, which receives real-time data on a continuous basis.
:Arkitex Director is installed at the 22 print sites giving each site complete control over production, including all aspects of workflow management and the tracking and control of all imaging processes. Director also provides tracking information back through the Courier system.
The Times Company has also invested in six high-performance violet CtP systems (four :Polaris XTVs and two :Polaris XCVs) for its College Point, NY, printing facility. This is in addition to the 17 :Advantage CtP imaging units purchased as part of the five-year strategic alliance that began in 2005. The :Polaris systems will run Agfa’s :N91v plates.
The College Point installation also includes :Arkitex AutoPlan, which automatically sets-up editions, page counts, colours and plate position; and :Arkitex Afirma process control software which monitors all vital production parameters within the CtP system, processor and punch bender resulting in total quality assurance and keeping remakes down. Afirma enables The New York Times to move into a lights out operation.
The five-year alliance made Agfa the preferred supplier of complete workflow software solutions and violet CtP products to the Times Company.
“We had conducted a comprehensive review of the available technologies, and it became clear to us that Agfa’s :Arkitex Courier and Director offered the most intelligent, advanced and reliable solution,” said Joan Netsky, director of output systems, The New York Times. “The installation went very smoothly and we have effectively created a fail-safe system due to the built-in redundancies.”
“Our strategic agreement with Agfa continues to bring us significant improvements in quality and productivity,” said David Thurm, chief information officer, the Times Company. “The addition of Agfa’s :Polaris imaging systems will give a tremendous boost to our publishing needs, where gains in production capabilities are always a plus in the high-speed daily newspaper industry.”
The :Polaris XTV and XCV image up to 200 plates per hour. The XTV (trolley version) holds 1000 single- or 500 panorama plates, while the XCV (cassette version) has fully-automated plate-size switching within a single production run.
“With our :Arkitex workflow technology, we are delivering solutions that help the Times Company meet its demanding production needs and challenges,” said Agfa's Peter Wilkens, vice president of sales and marketing, United States. “We feel that this alliance will help The Times meet its changing technology requirements in the short- and long-term.”