Mortsel, Belgium, 8 June 2001 Agfa announced that the Omaha World-Herald selected the Polaris computer-to-plate system for the newspaper's new Freedom Center Production facility located in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A. The April 2001 installation marked Agfa's 300th Polaris in production at newspapers around the world. The Omaha World-Herald praised Agfa for its commitment to meet the newspaper's expectations. The Omaha World-Herald chose the Polaris CtP system to keep pace with its new Geoman ManRoland presses capable of printing 75,000 impressions per hour. "In our traditional imaging and platemaking process it would take two technicians roughly two hours to make 60 plates." Now, with the Polaris 200 and the K&F vision benders, we can have them ready in about 15 minutes. It's great," said prepress manager Mike D'Agosta. System integration manager Kristy Gerry explained that integration issues with the output anagement system was more involved than expected. "Agfa stayed true to their commitment of making this partnership successful and went above and beyond to reach the desired result," said Gerry. "That's why we selected Agfa-because of its experience with CtP in the newspaper industry and because of Agfa's commitment to match CtP performance with our expectations." The newspaper production team also praised the system's ease of use. According to electronic support manager, Steve Gray, the system, which included the Polaris 100 and 200, delivered completely imaged, processed, punched and bent plates to the press within two weeks of the installation. "I could not have been more pleased with how smoothly the installation was completed. The teamwork of the four Agfa techs was impressive. Our Polaris 200 was the first any of them had installed, yet they worked as if they'd done it a hundred times before," said Gray. The Omaha World-Herald was among the first of Agfa's customers to receive the new version of the IntelliNet NewsDrive 2.0 output manager. Technology systems administrator Malcolm Jackson was impressed with how quickly Agfa reacted to interface issues. "They worked out all the issues," he said. "The developers have created a very user-friendly sophisticated output tool with many future possibilities. We look forward to growing with NewsDrive."