Ahrensburg, April 2019  - Sooner or later in the life of a printing press, the time is ripe: upgrading with modern control and automation systems brings back the required production reliability and improves productivity, efficiency and product quality. DDV Druck GmbH, a company of the DDV Mediengruppe, Dresden, has therefore ordered a comprehensive QIPC-EAE Performance Package from Engineering Automation Electronics GmbH (EAE) to modernise its newspaper printing line.

Just over two decades ago - in 1998 - the company commissioned the Geoman press line with ten four-high towers and four folders in a newly built newspaper printing plant in the north of Dresden. Today the printing centre produces various regional newspapers: the Sächsische Zeitung (200,000-250,000 copies depending on the day of publication), the daily tabloid Dresdner Morgenpost (40,000-70,000) and more recently the Dresdner Neuesten Nachrichten (20,000-25,000). A series of advertising journals, publishing supplements and third-party products as well as semi-commercial products complete the output programme.

EAE on board right from the start
From the outset, the press has been preset, operated and controlled by EAE via control console and control technology as well as workflow components. In 2006 it was equipped with a colour register control system and a cut-off register control system from Q.I. Press Controls (QIPC). As the EAE systems in particular had become very outdated, the management of the printing centre decided to set up a corresponding retrofit program. Ralf Oberthür, Managing Director of DDV Druck GmbH: "The trigger and primary goal of the project is to maintain production reliability, because a number of software and hardware components have been discontinued years ago and support for them is no longer available. The retrofit is intended to help ensure the availability of our printing press for the next five to eight years".

Partnership with EAE confirmed
DDV Druck thoroughly explored the retrofit options of various system providers. The managing director explains why he finally chose EAE and the QIPC-EAE Performance Package as follows: "On the one hand, we know EAE as a reliable partner from many years of intensive experience. On the other hand, the integration of EAE and QIPC makes it a great advantage that we get everything we want from a single source and therefore have only one project contact.

Old out, new in and functionality extended
The Performance Package ordered includes numerous upgrades and extensions with which the printing centre can jump over several generations of operating systems and software: replacement of the eight previous OS/2-based press control consoles with EAE Baltic Star consoles with new hardware and console software based on Windows 10; replacement of the old EAE AVE system with the production planning and presetting system EAE Print and the existing EAE MuP system with the reporting and logging system EAE Info; installation of new PC hardware where necessary. New for DDV Druck will be the use of four control console tablets, which will enable press personnel to act more easily and quickly, especially during maintenance and servicing of the printing units. The EAE system landscape will grow through an EAE Softproof System with four stations and an EAE V.I.P. statistic database. The latter allows long-term storage of production-relevant data in an open format and flexible evaluation.

More automation and quality assurance
In addition, Q.I. Press Controls' quality control systems will be replaced and functionally expanded by the latest system generations. All ten printing towers will be equipped with the IDS-3D colour density, dampening and colour register control system (a total of 20 cameras) and - following an additional expansion order - all four folder superstructures will be equipped with the mRC-3D system for cut-off register and side-lay control for three webs each (24 cameras).

"In addition to production reliability, the Performance Package increases the overall level of automation so that we need less manual intervention during the start-up and production phases," explains Ralf Oberthür. "By expanding our quality assurance systems with ink density and dampening control, we will be able to produce more efficiently, achieve a more stable print quality and significantly reduce waste. The expansion of the cut-off register control is particularly helpful for tabloid production, which is increasing in our company due to external orders. And as a side effect of the project, we also get some smaller new production possibilities."

Implementation of the modernisation project on site in Dresden will start in July 2019. The project is scheduled to be completed in the course of this year.

Ralf Oberthür"On the one hand, we know EAE as a reliable partner from many years of intensive experience. On the other hand, the integration of EAE and QIPC makes it a great advantage that we get everything we want from a single source and therefore have only one project contact."