Control technology for eight production lines
Norwegian newspaper printer Amedia Trykk runs production at a total of five of its own printing centres. In Lillestrøm near Oslo and in Mosjøen in the north of the country, the company has recently been working on upgrading the production controls to the state of the art.

In Lillestrøm, Amedia Trykk has provisionally equipped two of eight bundling lines with a UniStack control from software developer Realcom. The eight lines involve Müller Martini technology dating from the 1980s, with CN80-series compensating stackers. Realcom is replacing the old control modules in the compensating stackers with a PLC programmable logic controller.

UniStack controls an inkjet system for single-copy addressing, programmed bundling on the CN80, as well as topsheet printing and application. For topsheet production, Realcom has replaced the old TABA inkjet equipment with commercially available, industrial-standard laser printers. The robust laser printers are less expensive to operate and easier to maintain than the inkjet system. Amedia Trykk has made provision to retrofit the six remaining lines in the same way as the first two by the summer of 2017.

In Lillestrøm, Realcom's UniLoad also controls the evacuation of bundles and their assignment to the loading docks. Currently, the information is transmitted to UniLoad via a barcode printed onto the topsheets. Later, the control of bundle evacuation is set to be integrated into Realcoms's higher-level UniMail host control system.

UniStack controls Imaje inkjet
Amedia Trykk is running production with a UniStack control from Realcom at the Mosjøen facility, too. UniStack controls the entire production, from inkjet addressing of the newspaper copies through the creation of standard and small bundles ‒ in each case on one Wamac stacker ‒ to topsheet printing and application. The single-copy inkjet addressing system is from the firm Imaje and integrated into TTR conveyor technology from Ferag.

Production is planned at the central UniMail control console and assigned to the two compensating stackers by means of the simple drag-and-drop function.

A good product at a fair price
Morten Kringler is responsible for production at Amedia Trykk's Lillestrøm facility. He explains why he favoured Realcom for the retrofit of the compensating stackers and for the new line control. From his point of view, one of the company's great strengths is the small yet really effective Realcom team. The software developer listened very closely, and then fulfilled the customer's requirements. “From Realcom, we obtained precisely the product we had envisaged, and what's more, we did so at a fair price,” says Morten Kringler. He underlines the system's simple and logical operation. Realcom configured the user interface with the users' preferences in mind. Moreover, users have the option to set up the interface themselves on the basis of templates. The fact that Realcom's offices are very close to the Amedia printing centre in Lillestrøm is seen by Morten Klingler as a welcome bonus.

At a relatively modest financial outlay, Amedia Trykk is working with contemporary hardware and software in Lillestrøm and in Mosjøen. That adds enormous value to the outdated mailroom technology, says Morten Klingler. Realcom has rid Amedia Trykk of the necessity to change the production technology to a completely new system. “We've saved a lot of money,” Morten Klingler can confirm.

UniTop controls topsheet printing in the distribution centre
Morten Klingler knew from experience that he would obtain a good product from Realcom. Amedia operates a distribution centre only a few hundred metres from the printing centre in Lillestrøm. Here, magazines, catalogues, advertising inserts and other print products are collected into bundles with varying contents. Realcom's UniTop software controls the output of up to 12,000 topsheets a day. Previously, the bundle lists were compiled manually in Excel lists, which was time-consuming and came with a high risk of error. Since 2015, UniTop has been accepting the distribution data from the Schur compensating stacker control software and converting that data into its own dialect in order to output the topsheets.

Polaris Trykk equips three facilities
In addition to Amedia Trykk, Polaris Trykk – a second large newspaper printer in Norway – has converted its mailroom systems to control technology from Realcom. A UniMail system with UniStack components is controlling newspaper production at each of the Alta, Harstad and Ålesund facilities.

The largest installation is in Ålesund, where Polaris Trykk prints around 27 in-house and external newspaper titles. Its own flagship publication is the daily newspaper Sunnmørsposten with a circulation of 25,000 copies.

In Ålesund, as an initial step, Polaris Trykk has equipped one production line with a UniStack control. UniStack controls an inkjet addressing system as well as the printing and application of topsheets onto the bundles downstream from a Ferag ABL stacking system. Release of the newspaper copies in the stacking system is also controlled by UniStack (release control). In the topsheet printer, Realcom has replaced the old Ferag control components with a modern, compact PLC control.

Evacuation of the bundles is controlled by the UniLoad software. Like the installation at Amedia in Lillestrøm, the information is passed to the control system via barcode, which is printed with the topsheet.

At a later point in time, Polaris Trykk in Ålesund intends to equip two further lines comprising a total of three Ferag MultiStack stackers with the UniStack control. The plan is to integrate all three production lines and the UniLoad evacuation control into the higher-level UniMail host control system.

Realcom control in the far north
In the north of the country, in both Alta and Harstad, Polaris Trykk has equipped a production line with Realcom control technology. In Harstad, in addition to topsheet printing and application, UniStack controls an inkjet single-copy addressing system and two Wamac compensating stackers for the production of standard and small bundles. In the Alta production centre, UniStack controls an inkjet single-copy addressing system as well as a Wamac stacker inclusive topsheet printing.

Realcom is independent – a plus for the users
Realcom has been a known quantity at Polaris Trykk for many years. As Kjell Kvasnes, who is responsible for production in Ålesund, explains, a control from Realcom had already been installed on a quarterfold line in the year 2000. Each week, Polaris Trykk processes around five out of the total of seven million print products produced on the quarterfold line in Ålesund. The system is still running perfectly, says Kjell Kvasnes. That's also thanks to open, far-sighted programming. Over the years, Realcom has maintained the control at state of the art with regular updates. “And when we've had to replace the hardware, we've been able to do so comparatively cheaply in any supermarket.”

What Kjell Kvasnes particularly appreciates about software developer Realcom is its independence. Realcom develops the software with no ties to a specific mailroom technology, and regardless of a system's age. Ultimately, it's the users who benefit from such freedom – they can search the market for suitable components without being bound to a particular manufacturer. “If we change something within our technology, or if we require new functions in the control, Realcom develops them, and does so at a speed that for us is unprecedented,” Kjell Kvasnes notes with satisfaction.

(http://www.realcom.no)