Touch-Screen Controls Coming for WPC Presses

By: E&P Staff Early next year, Web Press Corp., Kent, Wash., intends to offer touch-screen controls on its presses.

Now using a console that integrates some touch-screen technology, along with conventional switches and potentiometers, the company for about a year has been "developing an integrated touch-screen control system," says President Gary Palmer. "We're doing the programming of that screen technology to integrate it with our presses."

Palmer said the work comes in response to customers' expressed interest and to the sort of capabilities now "in control systems we are purchasing."

Final adjustments will await experience with screens at a yet-to-be-named nearby beta site. "We've got a few in mind," said Palmer.

In September, the manufacturer of Atlas and Quad-Stack presses and Quadra Color common-impression units showed touch-screen controls with most of the planned press parameters and functionality at the Print 05 trade show in Chicago.

The touch screens, said Palmer, "will be available on everything we sell," beginning in January or February.