Greater brilliance for newspapers
Canada’s largest contract printer, Transcontinental Printing, has equipped its first newspaper publishing company in the United States with three COLORMAN, XXL presses by manroland. They constitute the world’s first 6 x 2 blanket-to-blanket heatset presses. The company also invested in manroland technology for its Montreal location: in a flexible COLORMAN printing system equipped with UV.
The company. As Canada’s and Mexico’s largest printing company and number four in North America, Transcontinental has positioned itself
as the nation’s leading publisher of consumer magazines and French-language educational materials, as well as the second-largest publisher of community newspapers. Transcontinental is distinguished by establishing
strategic partnerships that integrate the company into its customers’ value creating chain, particularly thanks to its unique newspaper printing model and added value services. Whether mass marketing or highly-customized marketing, the company offers its customers integrated solutions: these include North America’s leading direct marketing offer, a multi-faceted digital platform, and a door-to-door advertising sales network. Transcontinental has about 11,000 employees in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. In 2009, it reported an income of 2.4 billion Canadian Dollar.
Printing in XXL perspective
François Olivier, President and CEO of Transcontinental, says innovation and reputation are the main reasons that his company chose manroland: “We selected them for the quality of their project management, for their technology, and for their success story,” he notes. “We also like manroland’s open approach to working with other vendors’ systems in prepress and postpress.
Moreover, their innovative idea of applying the 6 x 2 blanket-to-blanket configuration to newspaper presses was something we discussed in-depth with them. And we liked the answers they provided.”
One innovation after another. After Transcontinental signed an exclusive 15-year contract with the Hearst Corporation to print the San Francisco Chronicle daily newspaper and its related products, as well as provide complete postpress services, the purchase of the new printing presses was the first technological innovation related to the new business model.
Built to perform. The press: each COLORMAN, XXL consists of four CD 15 reel splicers and three eight-couple towers. Operated by two PECOM control consoles, each COLORMAN press can produce 48 broadsheet pages, 24 of them in full color.
All three presses are also equipped for heatset production. Creative newspaper concepts not only make it possible for the newspaper to run advertisements for high-quality consumer goods, they also meet reader demands for quickly accessible information, and address the reading habits of younger target groups who appreciate newspapers as source of information as well as entertainment.
In addition, the new Transcontinental operation includes a number of automation systems, such as the AUROload automatic reel splicer loading and unloading, automatic web infeed, and automatic web tension control. The COLORMAN presses are shaftless presses with a separate digitally controlled motor for each printing unit.
They are equipped with the ROLAND InlineRegister Control and ROLAND InlineDensity Control systems, as well as a powerful turbo dampening system. The cut-off register control is based on an algorithmic cut. Plate changing is considerably faster thanks to PPL, the automatic PowerPlate-Loading system.
Networked production.
manroland’s involvement with Transcontinental goes beyond the pressroom. The printnetwork production management and printnetwork workflow system is an integral part of the project.
Flexibility as a business model
The press. Start of production for the 24-page COLORMAN press with a total of eight printing towers in a 9-cylinder configuration was in spring 2009. The newspaper printing system, equipped with eight reel splicers and three 2:5:5 folders, prints four-color tabloid products with up to 192 pages. The maximum
output per press operating in double production is 90,000 copies per hour.
A 9-cylinder tower is equipped with UV drying, allowing the production of higher-quality advertising materials as well as hybrid products. To be ready for the future and for increasing demands in newspaper production, two other towers are also prepared for UV drying.
Transcontinental establishes strategic partnerships with its customers to handle their newspaper production and related added-value services on an outsourcing basis. Transcontinental prints well-known daily newspapers such as San Francisco Chronicle, The Globe and Mail, La Presse, or the New York Times, as well as 125 weekly news papers serving the North American
continent. Whether mass production or highly-customized products, the company offers its customers integrated solutions including cross-continent direct marketing, various digital platforms, and an end consumer sales network for advertising materials.