March 26, 2003

TKS’ COLOR TOP 7000 ACHIEVES FASTEST NEWSPAPER PRINTING SPEED IN WORLD

TKS’ Shaftless ColorTop 7000CD (couple drive) newspaper printing press
achieved and maintained a printing speed of 96,000 cph. The Nagano (Japan)
Production Center of Shinano Mainichi Newspaper has been running their
TKS ColorTop 7000CD press consistently at the rated speed of 85,000 cph.
Last fall, due to increased production demands, the Shinano Mainichi
Newspaper needed more flexibility in their production window.

Although the ColorTop 7000CD’s top printing speed of 85,000 was based on
parameter settings relative to the various post-press equipment and the
newspaper’s operations through put, this was not the highest limit their
operations was designed for. With the full cooperation of the newspaper,
and making use of their non-printing day, TKS undertook test printing of 16
full color pages at a speed of 96,000 cph. The result was stable printing
at 96,000 cph producing 55,000 printed copies, proving that the existing TKS
press could print consistently at a speed of over 95,000 cph.

For this test, the only change made to the newspaper’s daily routine, was to
change the press and post press through put to 96,000 cph. This included
equipment such as conveyors, delivery and packaging equipment.