Retrofit trends from the newspaper market

Print Solutions

Every printing company has to face this question at some stage: press retrofit or new investment? manroland web systems experts compare this decision with buying a house: would it make more sense to renovate an old house or build a new one? Basically any press can be put into a condition which will satisfy the current customer expectations. Which upgrades can be made these days through sensible investment and have new investments gone out of fashion?

The most significant advantage of a retrofit are obvious: it ensures the uptime of the existing press for many more years and lowers the operating costs due to the higher availability of spare parts. Matthias Heißler, upgrades/retrofits team manager at manroland web systems, has adapted to the different customer requirements worldwide, together with his colleagues. ‘In declining newspaper markets like the USA, the trend is moving towards retrofits. It feels like almost every day printing companies are merging. Hardly anyone is therefore willing to invest in a press with a production cycle of 20 years.’

He added, ‘One of the most popular retrofits is replacing old electronic components and at the same time integrating modern diagnostic and reporting systems, which have established themselves within the last 15 years.’

manroland web systems offers a wide portfolio of new upgrade features. This includes technological innovations such as the mobile control desk, the MobilPad, ControlCenter and features like integrated inkjet or the mini plow for more attractive print products. The commercial former offers you the possibility to switch from a fixed to a flexible paper web width in a double width printing press. Therefore nothing stands in the way of printing different kinds of end products anymore. Meanwhile automation and workflow solutions have also awoken the attention of customers. The quality increasing Inline Control Systems for colour registers, cut off registers or ink density are exemplary for this. Hybrid presses, which feature digital printing heads integrated into an offset press or even whole paper webs running over the digital printing press, are also increasingly popular and a future market. This way individualised contents can be integrated into the newspaper fully automatically and inline.

A retrofit is significantly cheaper than a new investment – at first sight it is an enormous cost difference. But there are other parameters, which are essential for the ideal price-performance-ratio. New investments can still be economically viable today, especially if you are expanding your product range or moving into new markets, whilst lowering your production costs.