PrintExpress Press Manager at the Heart of Columbus Dispatch 3V Project

alfaQuest Technologies is pleased to announce the Columbus (OH) Dispatch is upgrading their

legacy PrintExpress Consolidated Production Management system to provide automated plate

imposition for the 3V (3 sheets per cylinder revolution) press configuration soon to be implemented

at the newspaper.

Keith Roeske, alfaQuest Director of Operations, states: “This is a very exciting project to be a part

of. The Dispatch will be implementing many of the new PrintExpress V4.0 features including our

Press Manager module, Fan-out Compensation, and Production Monitor.

PrintExpress will import press plans from Harland-Simon, in industry standard XML format, which

specify the layout for each of the TKS press lines and determine which of the four press lines are

being used in each press run. PrintExpress planner uses the imported plans to automatically

configure the imposition module and produce the required number of each plate, uniquely

annotating each to specify the unit and cylinder position and which of the four press lines the plate

is targeted for. 2D barcodes incorporating this information will be added to each individual plate for

the NELA bender and sorter.

By using the Press Manager module, there is tighter integration between the prepress workflow and

the presses.”

In addition to the current PrintExpress workflow utilized at the Dispatch, PrintExpress will provide

2V, 3V and 6V page imposition and fan-out compensation applied to individual plates as required.

alfaQuest will also supply their web-based Production Monitor which will allow for both internal

and remote viewing of the production status for all publications.

“alfaQuest is a long standing press operations partner of ours,” said Joe Gallo, Executive Vice

President and Corporate Chief Information Officer at The Dispatch Printing Co. “We are confident

that alfaQuest’s capabilities will play a significant role in assuring the success of our first use,

worldwide, of the 3v printing process.”

Press Manager offers the ability to improve output quality by reducing the effect of web growth

(fan-out), improving cylinder adjustments and overcoming wear and tear because of the age of the

press. This leads to improved quality control, a more stable printing environment and significant

cost savings.

The Press Manager imposition scheme allows operators to enter the press towers in use and the

page number for each plate location, it also allows them to signify if the tower will be running in

‘Straight’ or ‘Collect’ mode should your press be able to support this. If running ‘Collect’ then you

can enter the page numbers for both high and low plate positions. If however, you are running

‘Straight’ then you can enter only a single number and the Press Manager configures PrintExpress

to output two copies of each plate.

alfaQuest Technologies is a leading provider of innovative and leading edge publishing systems, imaging

devices and workflow management systems. Our products include the FasTRAK-II, NewsXpress-II, Esprit-

II and NEWSmax Violet CTP. Workflow solutions include PrintExpress/CPM (Consolidated Production

Management) RipExpress II and PLATEmate systems for Sun and Windows and alfa CTP Workflow

systems for Macintosh and Windows.

alfaQuest Technologies, Inc., a member of the IPA Group of companies, designs, integrates, and

supports powerful cost-efficient, newspaper workflow page processing and imaging systems for the

publishing industry.