Digital print steps up to the plate

---

It recently transpired that when newspaper giant News International was in the planning stages of what would eventually lead to a £600m web press investment at its UK sites, it seriously considered including digital presses in the spend.

The plan centred on placing machines to produce The Sun and The Times in commercial print firms in some of the more remote areas of the UK. The rationale was simple: rather than spend time and money shipping products from one of its main production centres, it could simply produce the papers locally, reducing costs, cutting CO2 emissions and, importantly in the internet age, saving time.

When News International were pondering this flirtation, digitally produced newspapers were in their formative years and there were still concerns about the quality, availability of colour and cost per unit (newspaper). But that was three years ago and, since then, the interest in digitally produced newspapers has grown dramatically.
For example, the Daily Mail is now being digitally printed in New York using a Screen Truepress Jet520 on the same day it's printed in London. This is just one of many examples, with a raft of other titles now being produced in locations faraway from their home markets.

Technology improvements
The reason for the explosion in digital newspapers is simple: the improvements in digital technology, both press and post-press. Colour is now almost as vibrant when produced on a digital press as it is on a litho machine and the range of substrates has also grown. Equally the speed of the digital machines has come on significantly. While their output is still nowhere near the capacity of the cold-set behemoths that are used to produce newspapers the world over, and is never likely to be, the machines are now more than fast enough to cope with limited runs in the hundreds or thousands. Also, just as importantly, the cost per unit has tumbled.

The viability of digital newspaper models is largely down to the choice of digital engines and this has inevitably spawned fierce competition among manufacturers. Companies such as Océ, Xerox, Kodak, Agfa and Screen have all developed presses with the ability to produce on-demand newspapers.

However, as is so often the case, on the finishing front there are fewer options. Most experts will tell you that there is only one route available for finishing digitally printed newspapers: Hunkeler. But as the interest in the sector grows, so will the choice of finishing options.

 Hunkeler first launched its Newspaper Line around 10 years ago, long before the idea of printing newspapers on a digital press was considered possible, let alone viable. But joint owner and chief executive Franz Hunkeler had long been considered an innovator and one of his dreams at the end of the 1990s was short-run newspapers. He decided that it was something that could be done. So, largely using products similar to those already built by the firm, he set his team the task of finding a solution. As a result, when the first digital printers came to the company to ask about the possibility of producing digital newspapers, Hunkeler already had the answer.

The first newspaper finishing line was a means to an end. It ran at a little over 30m per minute and, by the firm's own admission, it was quite simple. However, in the same way that digital presses have moved on in the past 10 years, so has the sophistication of Hunkeler's post-press line (see box).

Rising interest in digital
The Swiss manufacturer's kit is distributed in the UK by Friedheim International and Robin Brown, national sales manager in the company's digital solutions division, says that enquiries in the digital sector are on the up. "When we were at Drupa, every newspaper group in the UK was talking about it - there was an awful lot of interest."

Currently, the UK has one prominent digital newspaper printer, Stroma in west London, which is part of Océ's Digital Newspaper Network. It began producing newspapers around eight years ago and currently handles 400 titles using its Océ kit and one of Hunkeler's original newspaper finishing lines.

According to Stroma managing director Steve Brown, one of the reasons for the lack of options available in finishing is down to the perceived lack of interest in digitally printed newspapers. He believes the only likely rival to Hunkeler comes from hand finishing.

"The main problem is that there are too few people printing newspapers digitally right now," he says. "There is no real incentive for anyone else to follow Hunkeler. It has never really interested another finishing manufacturer. I think Hunkeler spent a lot of money on their R&D and they now have a solution that really works.

"The only other option that I have heard of is in Singapore, where labour is obviously a great deal cheaper. They actually hand collate and fold the newspapers. But numbers for that will certainly not be huge."

Brown adds that the latest Hunkeler newspaper line would make life easier. "You print it digitally and the next time you see it is a finished item, it would be lovely to have one."

In the US, worldwide newspaper distributor Newsworld is also taking advantage of the digital model. It has linked up with a New York branch of the Alphagraphics franchise to produce the Daily Mail and plans to expand further. Like Stroma, the print firm is incorporating Hunkeler kit.

Newsworld chief executive David Renouf agrees that finishing kit for newspapers is currently in short supply, but he does see more manufacturers identifying the opportunities the burgeoning market offers and coming on board in the near future. However, the issue he has is not whether or not they will do it, but how much it will cost and how long it will take.
"It is a chicken and egg scenario," he says. "There is not a lot of choice, so people are put off printing [digitally]. But if nobody is printing newspapers, the manufacturers aren't going to get caught up in doing it.

"Essentially all you need is something to cut, collate and fold - it is as simple as that. I think there are some companies interested. We talked to several manufacturers and the answer we got was yes it can be done, but it was going to cost in the region of €500,000 (£455,000) and a prototype would be a year away."

Renouf believes that Hunkeler has a huge advantage at the moment. "It is a proven product, we are very happy with it and it has already demonstrated that it works," he said.

Lack of choice
So what other options are available? Chris Aked, marketing manager for continuous feed solutions at Xerox, says that another company offering finishing options on the back of a digital press is Lazermax Roll Systems. He is confident that other alternatives will follow.

"You can use an MBO or GUK folder as long as you have the collator, which Lazermax does," he explains. "Even Hunkeler integrates an MBO, so there is no reason technically why other manufacturers can't put their equipment on there.

"As the decline of newspaper use continues and technology is now at a viable speed for short-run newspapers, the rest of the manufacturers are not going to stand back and say ‘well we will just let Hunkeler have this one'. But Hunkeler have certainly stolen the march, they can hook on the back of any digital press."

As with anyone that finds themselves "out in front", Hunkeler is fully aware that other vendors will come along and the company is looking at other options.

"It is still very early stages, but they need to stay ahead of the game," Friedheim's Brown says. "The next challenge
is to collate sets, so that Sunday broadsheets can be produced. In another 12 months, there are sure to be more developments. This could also be used for more than just newspapers and that is the key for the line, it won't just be handling newspapers."

So it seems we are at a ‘wait and see' juncture in the newspaper finishing market. Hunkeler has got itself ahead of the pack and is likely to push improvements through in the near future. But, if there is an outlet that can make manufacturers money, it is certain that the rest will follow suit in one way or another. Hunkeler has raised the bar and the chase is on.

---

HUNKELER: THE LATEST NEWSPAPER LINE
Newspaper production was just one of the many stars of Hunkeler's recent Innovation Days 2009 event, which highlighted the power of integrating digital and post-press kit. Hunkeler's original newspaper line could be said to be a cobbled together effort. However, that's far from the case today. Hunkeler has looked at the line over the past few years and significantly improved on it. At this year's Innovations Days event in Lucerne, Switzerland, the company displayed its latest version, POPP7, which features a drum collator - not used on the earlier versions.

The DC7 drum collator holds the sheets using static until a full newspaper, or set, is collated This is then sent straight over a folder. The drum has increased the speed of the line to the extent that it is faster than any of the digital presses it will service. It now runs at around 150m/min, compared to the original machine, which ran at nearer 30m/min. Web width on the machine has been extended to 670mm.

At the event, the machine was shown with a specially designed Heidelberg Stahlfolder folder, which allows it to produce large-format variable pagination newspapers, up to 24 sheets. And, Hunkeler is in the process of improving the machine even further. Friedheim's Robin Brown says: "There was a limit to the number of pages that can be folded, at the moment it is 24 sheets, which will produce 96 pages, but I think they have cracked that."