The Times of India (TOI) is one of the most important newspaper publishers among the customers of manroland web systems. The company relies on COLORMAN, GEOMAN, REGIOMAN, and double-width CROMOMAN 4-1 systems as the technical basis for its success. To continue building on its leading position, the Times of India has decided to expand its printing capacities in the Delhi region and increase its flexibility in Mumbai.

Two GEOMAN printing towers were recently moved from the TOI printshop in Mumbai to the publisher’s Sahibabad location in northern India near Delhi. An existing GEOMAN system was also expanded to include six towers. TOI now has the prerequisites to produce 48 color pages. Color advertising is an increasingly popular option, especially during festival season in the fall. Now complete, this new configuration makes it possible to cater to these demands and print newspapers with 40 or 48 pages. 
Thanks to the collaboration between engineers from the main publishing house and colleagues from manroland India, the time required to convert the GEOMAN and get it back up and running could be reduced considerably. 

COLORMAN in Mumbai now even more flexible
The Times of India is also the main user of COLORMAN systems in India. To ensure even greater flexibility in terms of page numbers, two presses in Mumbai were connected across all sections. An additional web path guides two webs from one system through the balloon-former to the folder on the second system. This enables the printing of products with up to four 16-page sections or 64-page newspaper copies. And the original web path can still be used. In addition to additional web leads and turner bar levels, manroland web systems installed a new register control system. 

Greater availability just in time for festival season
Project lead Dr. Ralf Schädlich explains: “The challenge with this project was that the entire system still needed to be available for daily production. The customer could only offer to take a short break from using the system for three days. During this time, we also needed to do all testing and commission the system. At night, the presses kept running at full capacity. The actual conversion process took place in less than three weeks.”