Lahr, Germany – May 14, 2007 -- NELA Germany is pleased to announce that the Hindu, one of the largest English-language daily newspapers in India, has automated its plate making process in the Pre-Press room. ‘The Hindu’ recently completed installation of a NELA plate conveying and handling system in Maraimalai Nagar, Chennai, India to automate their plate making process. “Customers nowadays want the complete automated integration from CTP through the Punch/Bender and on to the plate delivery system.”, said Guido Eckenwalder of NELA. As part of the Hindu’s installation, an existing offline Vision Punch/Bender, the H-VCP, was sent back to Germany and updated at NELA’s plant in Lahr. The machine has been modified to a fully integrated inline, automatic conveying and plate handling Punch/Bender. The Hindu’s goal in automation is to have a pre-press process with minimal operator intervention. Two CTPs release the plates and the NELA system conveys them to the integrated fully automatic NELA Vision Punch/Bender, the VCP. After plates are precisely registered, they are transported via conveyor directly into the plate stacking area. Once plates arrive in the plate stacking area, they are rotated 180° and automatically transferred to a 8-bin stacking and sorting unit. A barcode-reader identifies the plate in front of the NELA VCP and allocates the plate to the selected stacking bin. NELA’s Sortation Software allows the CtP operator to configure different stacking set-ups for different daily productions. The plates can be sorted according to edition as well as printing units. Stacking modes can easily be changed or modified based on The Hindu’s daily requirements. Furthermore, the modified VCP is equipped with the NELA Fan-Out Software package. After the plate and its dedicated press cylinder position are identified the software compensates the fan-out failure during alignment and registration by using a memorized correction value. This software ensures perfect register and excellent printing quality. Those plates which can not be aligned according to the register marks are rejected and stacked in a dedicated stacking bin. In preparation for further expansion, The Hindu prepared the new plate making line and building for the addition of a third CTP and second inline NELA VCP.