Baldwin Technology plays important part in Bangkok Post's newspaper plant
7/2/2007
Baldwin Technology plays important part in Bangkok Post's newspaper plant
One of the largest expansion programmes in Asia’s newspaper industry is currently underway at the Bangkok Post, which is investing around US $30m on a new factory in the Samut Prakarn province, some 30 km east of the city centre. The new printing plant, officially named The Post Publishing Public Company Ltd, Printing and Distribution Centre, has been built on an eight-acre plot only five minutes from the new Bangkok airport. The building has 8,500 square metres of factory space plus 1,200 square metres for paper storage, making it around three times the size of the headquarters in Bangkok.
The new premises house Asia’s first KBA Prisma, a double width, four-tower press capable of printing 75,000 cph of 32-pages in full-colour. The press has been fitted with the latest Impact Global automatic blanket cleaning and World spray dampening facilities from Baldwin Technology. Equipment in the pre-press department includes Polaris XEV CTP units from Agfa, while the mailroom houses a comprehensive range of inserting, packing lines, counter stackers, wrap stations and cross strapping systems.
The Bangkok Post was established in 1945, making it Thailand’s oldest surviving newspaper, and is the country’s largest English language daily with a circulation of around 63,000. There is also a sister business daily, the Post Today, published in the Thai language and with a circulation of 70,000. Both titles are broadsheets with a pagination of about 52 pages and include regular inserts.
“The Post Today was launched only four years ago but the growth anticipated for this title over the next five years cannot be handled by our two aging Goss Community presses,” says operations director Lersak Jaturapol. “It was clear that we needed to invest in a modern, larger press. However, our existing Bangkok plant is at capacity and so the decision was made to build a completely new factory that could house the new press line and anything else we were likely to require in the future.
“One of our Goss presses will be moved to the new plant and we will eventually sell the other. The headquarters for the company, including the sales and editorial departments and our sheet-fed commercial printing operation, will remain in our present building. Installation of the press and the other equipment has taken place without any major problems and the print quality produced is very good. The most challenging task has been to retrain our press operators, who have been used to the small single-width/single circumference Goss Community with no computerised press controls. I’m pleased at how well they have adapted to this leap in technology.”
Having a high level of automation on a large press line is vital to achieving the greatest productivity and print quality possible, while keeping consumable wastage and makeready times to the minimum. Baldwin’s Impact Global system is a world leader in automatic blanket cleaning technology. Impact uses Baldwin’s unique Prepac cloth, which eliminates the need for solvents and ensures a fast and thorough clean of the blankets with virtually no intervention by operators.
“The Impact system has been straightforward to install and is easy to maintain and operate,” says Lersak Jaturapol. “From our investigations Baldwin’s Impact appears to be the most eco-friendly automatic blanket cleaning system available and with no need for chemicals. More importantly, it requires a much lower investment in subsequent treatment of waste. The system should enable us to achieve very fast makereadies between jobs.”
Baldwin’s World spray dampening system incorporates its Constant C technology, which generates a current of air around the nozzle tips, eliminating the common problem of nozzles blocking. The constant, even coverage of dampening solution on the plate throughout the production run results in greater dampening/ink control as well as better web tension and fan out control, leading to better print quality.
“The nozzles within Baldwin’s spray dampening system are designed to minimise clogging by ink mist and provide an excellent control of the application of fount solution to the plate. Maintenance of the spray dampening system is easy,’ says Mr Jaturapol. “Quality is important to us and our customers. The Bangkok Post and the Post Today have a large, loyal readership about a third of who are subscribers. We have the most extensive home delivery system operated by any Thailand newspaper and this covers the entire metropolitan and many of the surrounding provinces.”
The Post Publishing Public Company Ltd, the publisher of the Bangkok Post and the Post Today, employs around 1,000 people and was the first media company to be listed in the Securities Exchange of Thailand in the late 1980s.
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