Harland Simon at Work in U.S., U.K. Pressrooms

By: E&P Staff Harland Simon completed its first Mediaman press controls upgrade last month with no production interruption at The Forum, Fargo, N.D.

The project included replacement of Mavo inker and dampener controls, main DC drives, on-unit ink PCBs, register controls and ink drives with off-the-shelf solutions -- all controlled from two Prima 6000 desks. Harland Simon's Prima MS and RIPSet for scheduling, ink presetting, monitoring and reporting also was installed.

According to Forum Production Director Mike Crabtree, the system's diagnostic software discovered that potentiometers for controlling circumferential and sidelay register and ink key positions needed replacement. "Once these are all changed out and after Harland Simon returns later this month to follow up on the installation and make a few minor adjustments, I'm confident we will be able to capitalize on the savings this system has to offer," he said in a statement.

Also recently completed was extensive reconfiguration of control systems in a major expansion/consolidation project at Archant Print, Norwich and Ipswich, England.

The differing ages and technologies of existing equipment and the four new towers a fourth folder complicated the project. That complexity and the need to ensure that required production capacity was maintained stretched out on-site work to more than 20 months. Furthermore, multiple stages of the additions presented the challenge of managing a separate software release for each stage of the press reconfiguration, until the full installation could be brought to the latest version.

The project also included integration of many third-party systems, such as QTI auto-registration and Baldwin dampening and blanket washing.

In another project in England, to be completed by late December, Harland Simon will replace Rockwell Automation controls on Harmsworth Printing's Goss HT press at its print site in Derby, while keeping the press in daily production. Harland Simon Prima 6000 control consoles and a Prima press-management and presetting system will replace three control desks.