MAN Wins 'L.A. Times' Expansion Contract

By: Jim Rosenberg MAN Roland earlier this week made good on plans announced in the past year to enter the cross-vendor press-addition business. The German press maker's U.S. subsidiary in suburban Chicago said it sold the Los Angeles Times 10 eight-couple Colorman towers -- one for each of the 10 Goss Colorliner presses in the Olympic and Orange County plants.

Three of the Valley Plant's five Goss Metroliner presses will be reconfigured to add eight-couple Colorliner towers created by stacking existing A-B units on other A-B units. Masthead International will engineer the four-color towers -- believed to be the first time Colorliner towers will be built from units not designed for stacking. The plant's remaining two presses will be expanded with two Colorliner towers taken from a dismantled 16th press.

Upgraded positions, both Colorman and repositioned equipment, will be capable of running two webs. The changes will boost the Times' six-section, 96-page full-color capacity from 24 to 32 pages. The Colorman towers are to be delivered next fall. The accelerated project, under MAN management, is to be completed by the spring of 2005.

The project will include putting CGI digital page packs on all Goss presses and a press-control upgrade by Rockwell Automation, from Windows NT to a Windows 2000 platform.

According to Times Operations Senior Vice President Mark. H. Kurtich, the paper could not consider replacing any of its presses, which date only from the late 1980s and early '90s and were cut down for a 50-inch wide web only four years ago. In 1983, the Times installed Hoe offset, support for which MAN Roland assumed when it took over the Wood Hoe business.

Four manufacturers of doublewide presses were invited to bid on the project. Among other things, Kurtich cited MAN's turnkey solution and project management for its selection. Tribune Co. was one of Goss' oldest customers, and the L.A. Times was among Goss' first Colorliner users. Until now, all Tribune doublewide offset equipment in use carried a Goss nameplate.