YORK, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 16, 2005--As we celebrate National Freedom of Information Day and Sunshine Week, deadline-driven reporters can have more time to finish those important scoops. Today, newspapers - such as Knight Ridder's Wichita Eagle - are taking advantage of the high reliability offered by automation, which is allowing reporters to go up to the very minute of the press deadline to finish stories and helping to bring their articles to front doors worldwide. Pushing against a deadline isn't a worry with highly reliable presses designed here by KBA North America, one of the world's largest providers of newspaper printing presses, and featuring automation innovation from GE Fanuc, a unit of GE Infrastructure.
With the automated KBA presses, these newspapers have been able to achieve nearly 100-percent uptime - along with faster production and less paper waste.
Pressing On
Vice President of Technology Jan Lindstrom explains that KBA has traditionally been a company of firsts. "KBA was the first company to have digital splicers, shaft-less drives, and other technologies on our newspaper presses," Lindstrom says. "We're providing newspapers with reliability, cost and time savings, higher productivity, and greater ease of use."
With a new machine design, KBA sought to leverage control concepts that had been used in other industries but were new to newspaper printing. The team worked with distributor Advent Electric to employ controllers from GE Fanuc in a redundant architecture to ensure the highest reliability possible.
"GE Fanuc is a stable company with proven controller technology," Lindstrom explains. "Our machines make 70,000 copies per hour at maximum speed, and the newspaper can't afford to be 10 minutes late. In the press room, the machines have to work every time, all the time."
Read All about It
In the pressroom, the GE Fanuc controllers on the KBA presses monitor thousands of input/output points, ranging from water valves for washing out ink to the reel that feeds the paper. A shaftless drive system, which allows each unit on the press to operate independently, and the controllers provide such reliable, precise control that operators only need to run one press-length worth of paper before getting good copies, which reduces the amount of paper waste.
"Paper is the most expensive part of the printing process," Lindstrom notes, "so reducing the amount of wasted paper is a key cost benefit for newspapers as well as an environmental win."
These are benefits that any newspaper can run with - particularly on National Freedom of Information Day.
About National Freedom of Information Day
National Freedom of Information Day falls every March 16th - the birthday of James Madison. Madison, the fourth president of the United States, contributed largely to the Bill of Rights and had a strong belief in the right of the public to know. He wrote in 1822, "A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." For nearly 40 years, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has allowed any person the right to obtain many federal agency records and request declassification of government documents - and reporters across the country have led the charge.
-- GE Fanuc Automation - www.gefanuc.com
-- KBA North America - http://www.kba-usa.com
-- Advent Electric - http://www.advent-elect.com
-- Freedom of Information Act / U.S. Office of Special Counsel - www.osc.gov
Contacts
GE Fanuc Automation
Media Contact:
Alicia Bowers, 717-285-4400
[email protected]