QuadTech’s flexible solutions ensure complete control over every phase of production, enabling newspaper printers to deliver exactly the same results throughout the print run, from one print run to the next

Sussex, Wisconsin, USA – Global press control technology leader QuadTech, Inc. (Stand 540) will show how its fully automated, on-the-fly color control and web inspection solutions provide the key to quality consistency and lean newspaper printing at the WAN-IFRA India Expo, Bangalore, India (September 11-13, 2013).

The closed-loop Color Control and Web Inspection System with AccuCam™, enhanced with water control, is setting productivity and quality standards at major newspaper printing  operations around the world. As well as offering advanced image-based color control, the system provides reliable warnings of many common printing faults such as scumming, creasing, transposed plates, plate crack-outs, and tramlines. The system’s advanced web inspection typically detects defects within the first 170 copies, and continuously throughout the print run.

Eliminating the need for gray bars and color bars, AccuCam uses pre-press image files to create L*a*b* target aim point values. Its six-channel spectral sensor measures the printed web and calculates the L*a*b* values of the entire image, then brings the printed image to the specified L*a*b* target values and automatically maintains the color values throughout the production run.

As of August 2013, the system has been providing significant quality and waste improvements at the Newsprinters Knowsley (UK) plant, Sankei Shimbun Printing Co. (Osaka, Japan), Herold Druck und Verlag AG (Vienna, Austria), The Chicago Tribune (Chicago, USA), and printing semi-commercial work at Quad/Graphics plants in the USA. 

QuadTech’s Digital Ink System, for web offset printers, replaces conventional ink fountains with computer-controlled ink injectors. This provides precise density control across the printed image by metering the exact volume of ink required in each control zone consistently, at all press speeds. Removing the need for gap settings results in a more consistent ink density throughout the entire printing run, eliminates the costs of contamination from open fountains, resulting in significant and immediate savings in ink, paper, and maintenance. Because nothing is touching the fountain ball, the costs of recalibrating and replacing worn ink keys and fountain balls are eliminated.

QuadTech’s Register Guidance System with MultiCam® is a closed-loop color-to-color register control system designed to work on the ICON™ integrated platform with other QuadTech products such as Ribbon Control System with MultiCam^®. The uniqueness of the MultiCam design is that it can search the entire repeat length of the web, identifying marks as small as 0.36mm (0.014in). It can easily process the large volume of data generated by searching for register marks on text-heavy newspaper pages, using unique FPGA-based hardware. This allows the system to find or remain locked onto register marks, and control register during tension upsets and times where register could be out. The MultiCam systems make adjustments at press speeds of up to 17.8 meters per second.

QuadTech’s Register Guidance System also includes an optional fan-out control feature. The system captures even the tiniest shift in lateral register position and instantly makes automatic corrections via an interface with the bustle devices.

QuadTech press controls share a common ICON™ integrated platform, which provides real-time press control from a single point. Data Central® Reporting  generates and stores press performance data, optimizing quality control for operators who can then compare productivity and make strategic decisions according to previous and live runs.

Karl Fritchen, President of QuadTech, comments: “Our focus on innovation has helped establish a new standard in quality and waste control in the newspaper printing workflow. And our global presence and service capabilities gives printers full, local access to support at every stage of the print workflow. WAN-IFRA India Expo gives the region’s visitors a chance to appreciate this powerful combination of benefits first hand.”