The study was released by PrintCity alliance members Adphos Eltosch, MAN Roland, MEGTEC, Sun Chemical and UPM which presented the findings of the Value Added Printing of Newspapers (VAPoN) study at IfraExpo, in Amsterdam this month.
Now available from PrintCity, the study provides a considered assessment of both quantitative and qualitative analysis of value added printing trends, techniques, equipment and consumable materials. The objective is to help inform and guide newspaper printers and publishers in their investment decisions says Paul Casey, the PrintCity VAPoN project team leader and Sun Chemical technical service development director.
It has drawn a number a broad conclusions which are:
•While heatset printing has been of interest and growing on single wide newspaper presses for many years, it has not yet significantly penetrated the double wide press sector. However, there is growing interest and some innovative recent installations in this format
•There is growing interest in value added newspaper production worldwide and quantitative VAPoN project research using independent industry observations indicates that ROP advertising premiums of over 40% may be achievable for higher quality newspaper pages
•Choice of paper is likely to have the biggest impact on perceived newspaper quality appearance, followed by drying technique, press and ink specifications
•Conventional heatset drying is most popular currently but UV (Ultra Violet), Inert UV and Electron Beam drying offer advantages including compactness and lower investment cost. However, the report’s economic evaluation shows that their total operating costs are higher than heatset
•A constraint on these new techniques is that currently UV, Inert UV and Electron Beam drying have production speed constraints below the maximum speed of many presses
•Inert UV offers some promise of higher production speed and improved economics with a first customer installation taking place at Herold in Vienna, Austria in 2007 – this project includes PrintCity VAPoN partners Adphos Eltosch (Inert UV drying), MAN Roland (MAN Colorman printing tower), Sun Chemical (inks) and UPM (paper)
•Every customer situation will be different and specific guidance and recommendations should be sought for each application. The PrintCity VAPoN team encourages customers to approach them for a specific discussion of their own needs
