By: E&P Staff The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va., reports increased productivity, reduced waste and faster start-ups six months after purchasing the QuadTech Autotron 2800 register guidance system and register motorization from Litho Service, based in Quebec.
The Virginian-Pilot installed the $120,000 worth of equipment in March to three of its Goss Metro Presses on a trial basis to judge efficiency. Calling the try-out successful from the start, Virginian-Pilot Quality/Imaging Manager George Karangelen said in a statement that his paper has "seen start-up waste copies and bad papers due to paster cycles reduced by 23% in the last six months."
The plant has 30 units in a line of 20 half-decks and 10 mono units. In QuadTech's first partnership with the Canadian retrofitter, Litho Service provided register motorization for circumferential, side lay and unit-to-unit compensators.
The Virginian-Pilot equipment handles commercial work and the state's largest daily metro daily, which circulates 183,024 weekday copies. The Autotron 2800 and Litho Service motorization system are currently on three units that run The Link, a youth-orientated five-day tabloid with 32,000 distribution. "We deliberately chose to test the new equipment on this product because it is the only one that we run color on every page," said Production Maintenance Manager Lorenzo Mason.
The first in the country to install the Autotron 2800 on a Goss Metro, the company was sufficiently pleased with the results that it will add motorization and Autotrons on its newspaper color leads, according to Karangelen.
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