Q.I. Press Controls’ Smart Pre-setting gives older presses second youth

Oosterhout, October 2018 – A new Smart Pre-setting feature from QIPC-EAE is delivering on a promise to save an extra 150-200 copies with each press start-up. It’s the latest development from a company already with a strong reputation for giving older presses a new lease of life and turning them into modern machines again.


Start-up savings
Systems from the European specialists – the acronyms stand for Q.I. Press Controls – Engineering Automation Electronics – have been helping optimize performance on both old and new presses for years. Smart Pre-setting is a further application to improve performance of a press without buying new hardware. In addition to the ink keys, Smart Pre-setting also regulates the amount of dampening based on self-learning software. “This way, 150 to 200 copies can easily be saved during start-up,” says director Menno Jansen.  

NZME

Auckland-based NZME – which prints the New Zealand Herald and a range of other titles including some for Fairfax Media unit Stuff – is among sites where these savings are already being appreciated and fine tuning promises more. Production manager Russell Wieck says the Smart Pre-setting software gives them more control over start-ups: “We don’t work with a single press line here and often switch between our three presses. It happens that we run for hours with a number of towers and then suddenly have to add a new, cold tower for the next production. There was a big imbalance between these hot and cold towers at the next start-up. The new software recognizes hot and cold towers and decides on the basis of this how much dampening should be added at the next start-up. This makes a big difference.”  

Remote

A feature of the Auckland implementation was that it was completed almost entirely remotely, a task made easier by the strong relationship the two have had over many years. “In cooperation with NZME, we did a lot of research into the precise adjustment of the system,” says Menno Jansen. “Fine-tuning such a software package requires a lot of time and energy. Yet it proved possible to do this with their technicians on site and our coordination from the Netherlands. It says a lot about the user-friendliness of the Smart Pre-setting software”. Russell Wieck says the cooperation has been flawless: “The support from QIPC is perfect, with it helping that our night is their day,” he says. “This allows us to have direct contact with QIPC during our production.”  

Up-to-date

The result is that the presses in New Zealand continue to compare favorably with more modern machines. “We can now look ahead,” says a satisfied Russell Wieck. “Our press is more than 20 years old, but thanks in part to Smart Pre-setting it is more optimized for the future. This is important in our business. No one else but QIPC is doing much to keep old presses up-to-date”.

Russell Wieck"The Smart Pre-setting software gives us more control over start-ups"

About Q.I. Press Controls:
Q.I. Press Controls develops and delivers innovative, high quality optical measure and control systems. We are globally active in the newspaper and magazine printing industry. Our total solutions are supported by a worldwide service network. These reliable systems are proven in the market of existing and new printing presses and offer our customers structural better results.  

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For more information: www.qipc.com

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