(July 2, 2003) The Newspaper Agency Corporation has signed
a letter of intent to purchase three state-of-the-art presses from TKS (USA),
a wholly-owned subsidiary of TKS, Ltd., a Japanese press manufacturer located
in Tokyo. The Color Top 5000UD shaftless presses will be installed in the new
NAC facility slated for completion by summer 2005 in West Valley City, UT.
The new 350,000-square-foot facility will be the headquarters for the Newspaper
Agency Corporation and will house approximately 800 employees. Presses and new
packaging and material handling equipment will publish The Salt Lake Tribune
and the Deseret Morning News. Both newsrooms will remain in downtown Salt Lake
City.
The new presses and related equipment will better enable NAC to print both
morning papers within a tight production window and greatly improve logistics,
reproduction and delivery.
This press order represents the largest installation in North America of the
new 4x1 press (4x1 presses print eight pages on each unit of the press
using half of the press plates now used on NAC’s presses).The press line will be
installed in a press hall that will be 400 feet long, 80 feet high and 50 feet
wide. The press hall will be adjacent to the packaging area and the corporation’s
business, advertising, data processing and corporate offices.
Installed on a concrete tabletop foundation, the 70,000-copies-per-hour presses
will include heavy duty 2:5:5 jaw folders; 111 couples with open
fountain inking; 24 core drive RTPs (newsprint roll loaders) with automatic roll
loading; fully automatic web leading system; blanket wash and registration systems;
and T-NPC console press controls with a training simulator.
“This entire project will be the most technologically advanced newspaper production
center in the country,” said Fred Temby, NAC executive vice president and general
manager. “We will employ computer-to-plate technology, automatic robot delivery of
newsprint rolls to the press units, and will provide the newsrooms and advertising
department with 56 pages of process color in two press runs.”
TKS (USA)’s parent company Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho, Ltd. has been in the business
since 1874. It is a global manufacturer of printing presses and has the overwhelming
market share in Japan. In the United States, TKS presses produce daily newspapers at
the Dallas Morning News, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the Wall Street Journal
and the Newark (NJ) Star Ledger. Its USA headquarters is in Dallas, TX.
“Everyone at NAC is pleased to partner with TKS,” said Joseph Zerbey, president and
CEO of NAC. “They are a premier press manufacturer with a proven record of performance
and support unequaled in the industry.”
TKS has 40 shaftless Color Top presses running worldwide and 50 more to be installed
in 2004 and 2005.
“The NAC installation shows the dedication of TKS to the United States market as well
as NAC’s confidence in TKS to deliver on time as promised,” said Mike Shafer,
national sales manager for TKS (USA).
“This order is a very important milestone for our USA market,” said Kohei Shiba,
president of the parent company. “We know this installation will showcase our
technology and will convince future customers that TKS has the best equipment and
technology in the world. Our existing customers in the USA can testify to the equipment
quality and service we provide. We are looking forward to working with the Newspaper
Agency Corporation in their very important project.”
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