Marietta (GA) - USA, August 2015
Grupo Nación of San José, Costa Rica, has requested QIPC-EAE Americas to
modernise various EAE systems on its newspaper and semi-commercial press. The
American branch of Q.I. Press Controls and EAE cooperated with its agent,
Print2Finish, to win the order. The retrofit project concerns a KBA Comet web
press which was commissioned at the end of 2004 and upgraded from an eight
tower to a ten four-high tower installation in 2008.
Grupo Nación of San
José, Costa Rica, has requested QIPC-EAE Americas to modernise various EAE
systems on its newspaper and semi-commercial press. The American branch of Q.I.
Press Controls and EAE cooperated with its agent, Print2Finish, to win the
order. The retrofit project concerns a KBA Comet web press which was
commissioned at the end of 2004 and upgraded from an eight tower to a ten
four-high tower installation in 2008. Due to the installation of two heatset
dryers, one section of the press is also suitable for semi-commercial
production with enhanced or coated papers. The web press has been equipped with
EAE control consoles, the EAE PRINT system for production planning and
pre-setting, the EAE INFO system and Net and Service PCs. The press also
features colour register control as well as cut-off register control systems
from Q.I. Press Controls.
The web press
operates seven days a week. Besides the two dailies La Nación (100,000 copies) and La Teja (120,000 copies), Grupo Nación
also produces El Financiero, a weekly
business newspaper. Grupo Nación also contract-prints
nearly forty local newspapers. Aside from newspaper production, the group's
printing capacity is utilised for commercial jobs, both internal and external,
such as shoppers, magazines, books and catalogues.
Rejuvenation therapy for the control and planning technology
This retrofit order
is part of a major modernisation project in several phases which is scheduled
for completion in 2015. It specifically addresses the replacement of the
hardware for the five EAE control console PCs and the three EAE Net PCs plus
the associated operating system upgrades. A hardware and software upgrade for
the EAE PRINT system, including EAE Density (for calculating the ink zone
presets), will additionally be realised.
Patricia Centeno,
Operations Manager, explains why the newspaper printing firm decided on the
retrofit project: "EAE's control consoles and systems are excellent – and
thanks to the graphical user interface, they're also very convenient. However,
since the operating systems for several EAE solutions have meanwhile been
discontinued and support for them is no longer available, the risk of
substantial lost productivity due to technical problems with the equipment was
simply too great. At the same time, we're confident that updating our EAE PRINT
system will give us improved press planning and pre-setting options to enable
us to print more formats supplementary to tabloid. Restoring reliable
production will be one benefit, yet the increased flexibility when it comes to
planning and managing commercial jobs is equally important."
The retrofit work is
due to be executed in San José in August and September 2015. "We can't
afford to have our production disrupted by the retrofit measures, which is why
press downtime needs to be kept to a minimum", says Production Manager
Juan Carlos Ávila. QIPC-EAE Americas' technicians will schedule the retrofit
activities around the customer's production to avoid any interruption.
The next retrofit
phase for the web press at Grupo Nación is planned for the coming year. The aim
then will be to upgrade the service and information systems and the press
controls to the latest state of the art.
