In mid-April 2014, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Printing & Packaging Machinery (MHI- P&PM) announced a March 2014 contract with Oita Godo Shimbun for the purchase of two Mitsubishi 4 x 1 DiamondSpirit newspaper offset presses. The new presses are scheduled for delivery in 2015 and will be housed in the publisher’s new printing centre in Oita, Kyushu.
Oita Godo Shimbun was founded in 1886 and, through a consolidation in 1942 of two local newspapers (Hoshu Shimpo and Oita Shimbun), has remained the only local newspaper published in Oita. Throughout the company’s 128-year history, its corporate vision has continued to focus on growth in line with the prefecture’s prosperity. Oita Godo Shimbun is popular among local residents and, although competing with national dailies, enjoys a market share of nearly 60% of all newspapers sold within the prefecture.
With its investment in the two 4 x 1 Mitsubishi presses, Oita Godo Shimbun will be able to expand its capabilities in color pagination. Oita Godo Shimbun currently prints 440,000 copies daily
from its Oita plant which has two newspaper presses. Through discussions and thorough evaluation of actual production at several DiamondSpirit users in Japan, and with reliability being one of the key criteria, Oita Godo Shimbun settled for the Mitsubishi 4 x1 presses.
Both the 4 x 1 presses ordered by Oita Godo Shimbun are rated at 80,000 copies an hour with a web width of
1,626 mm (64-inches). Each will be configured with three 4+4 towers, two 1+1 printing units, one 2:2 double rotary folder and five reel stands. Each press has the basic capability of producing a 48-page broadsheet newspaper section consisting of 24 full colour and 24 monochrome broadsheet pages at a time.
The presses will be operated by the Mitsubishi press control system with automation features including ink presetting with CtP interface, various press presets and automatic color register control. In addition the presses will be equipped with fully automatic rail-type webbing up system, which enables individual webbing up of two ribbons even through turner bars and bay windows up to the RTF without manual intervention, and automatic dual web tension control, which reduces cut-off fluctuations by individually controlling web tension at the reel stand as well as the infeed.
This latest order of a DiamondSpirit 4 x1 press is aimed at publishers that increasingly focus on solution-targeted marketing and employ newspaper production assets with a great deal of flexibilit
