June 4, 2002 -- Achieving optimum print products with a new press as soon as possible after its commissioning – that is what the customer expects, and it is also in the best interests of press manufacturer and suppliers. For this reason, MAN Roland conducted an extensive programme of consumable testing at the training centre of its Plamag works in Plauen (Germany) from 21 through 23 May 2002, together with the first six REGIOMAN customers from the United States and US suppliers of paper, ink and damping solution. The REGIOMAN pressline in Plauen served customers and suppliers for thorough testing of consumables. MAN Roland staff in Westmont and at the Plauen factory had been preparing the tests over a period of about seven months. First meetings for the project took place in January and March of this year in the USA. The contacts between customers and suppliers were established on these occasions, and a preliminary selection of the American consumables was made then and there. Comprehensive preliminary tests and material supply free of charge Next, all consumable suppliers did a great deal of preliminary testing, after which they delivered the optimized materials to the testing site in Germany free of charge. The supply included, for example, 51 reels of paper. Together with the suppliers, the customers could finally experiment with a wide variety of materials in order to determine the optimum consumables for their new presses before putting them into operation. This saves time and costs later on, in actual preparation of the first production run. On the customer side, the participants in the testing programme included representatives of the printers of the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, the Union-News/Sunday Republican in Springfield, the Flint Journal in Flint, the Kalamazoo Gazette in Kalamazoo, the Knoxville News Sentinel in Knoxville, and of Valley Publishing in Michigan - companies, all of them, who have already bought REGIOMAN presslines. Represented as partners of the printing industry were, among others, Bowater Paper, Flint Ink, U.S. Ink, VARN, Pressroom Solutions, Boettcher, Day International, Reeves, Conti Tech, Agfa, Eurografica, Pape & Partner and Votra. REGIOMAN customers happy with outcome of tests Jim Foley, Production Director of Union-News/Sunday Republican, Springfield, who headed the team of REGIOMAN customers in Plauen, makes a positive sum-up: "This week of testing was very successful. All materials and material combinations we used produced very good printing results. Both the prints and the measured objective criteria like density and dot gain, as well as the subjective criteria, have shown that all these materials were really satisfying. The printing quality was stable and good throughout the testing period. The customer objectives of the tests were fully achieved. It was found that the American consumables used will lead to good printing results on the REGIOMAN and that there is more than one supplier a customer can choose."