Telegraaf Drukkerijen Group places largest ever order for Baldwin Jetstream 1000 Systems

6/30/2006

Baldwin Technology has won the largest ever order for its Jetstream 1000 web cleaning system following a major spend by the Telegraaf Drukkerijen Group’s Amsterdam printing plant. The investment includes 42 Baldwin Jetstream modules and the results from the first systems to be installed have been so impressive that TDG’s newspaper plant in Alkmaar, Holland, has now placed an order for 22 Jetstream modules. The Baldwin equipment for the Alkmaar site will be fitted to an MAN press with 15 reelstands and a Goss press with seven reelstands.

Engineers at the Amsterdam site had spent a long time researching ways of improving press efficiency and reducing manual involvement in blanket cleaning, which was carried out by hand on the company’s ten MAN Teleman web offset presses. One of the key people involved in the installation is project leader John Vlaar.

“We started by looking at the different options available on the market, from automatic blanket wash systems to web cleaning systems and carried out extensive trials of equipment from different suppliers,” says Mr Vlaar. “Baldwin’s Jetstream proved that it was the one technology that best met the various and vigorous criteria we had set. It was also a very cost effective solution.”

Jetstream is a revolutionary approach to improving print quality, productivity and profitability on a web offset press, whether for commercial or newspaper applications. The special aerodynamic nozzle, positioned close to the web surface, works via a combination of vacuum in the cleaning module and a high velocity air flow, which moves along the web surface and into the cleaning module. The airflow breaks the boundary layer on the paper and forces the particles that were trapped in this layer into the cleaning module. The compact system requires little space, maintenance is minimal and one module will clean both sides of the paper web.

TDG installed the first Jetstream units in January using its own engineers and, following inspection by Baldwin technicians, was certified to install and commission the cleaning equipment at the Amsterdam site. The company expects to have installed all 42 Jetstream modules over the next few months. “We have 42 reelstands at the factory and the Jetstream units are relatively easy to fit. To avoid effecting production we carry out this work when presses are printing smaller pagination papers that do not require every reelstand to be in operation.

“Where the Jetstream units are in operation the difference to productivity, quality and the working environment is significant. On presses not fitted with Jetstream units minders generally clean blankets after every 300,000 copies because the build up of debris on the blankets starts to have an unacceptable effect on print quality.

“During trials of the Baldwin equipment we have printed as many as five million impressions without cleaning the blankets. In this situation we found that that the amount of debris on the blankets was stable and at a level that did not adversely effect print quality. You can be certain we were subjecting copies to very stringent quality testing, including industry standard tests as laid down by IFRA,” says John Vlaar.

TDG has set itself specific targets and on all of the Amsterdam MAN presses fitted with Jetstream it now has a policy of cleaning blankets only once each week. During the next few months the company plans to clean blankets once every two weeks and if this proves successful the period between cleaning will continually be extended until the optimum time is reached. TDG’s press operators report that cleaning blankets can be carried out much more quickly when the amount of ink is normal but debris levels are low.

“We were concerned about the potential level of paper wastage at the start of a print run if we hadn’t cleaned the blankets following the previous job. However, we discovered that, with or without Jetstream, paper wastage during start up stays the same. For TDG it is very important that the web cleaning system does not adversely influence waste.”

TDG has several paper suppliers and every stock normally used at the Amsterdam plant has been tested during the research period. The level of debris on blankets was constant when the Jetstream system was in operation, regardless of paper type. The Telegraph is printed on standard 42.5 gsm newsprint - 800,000 copies daily with one million on a Saturday. In addition, the site prints some 50 different titles, ranging from daily newspapers to weekly magazines.

“One test we conducted involved cleaning thoroughly two identical presses, which included every part such as knives, turning bars, cylinders etc,” says John Vlaar. “One press was equipped with Jetstream units and the other was not. After a short period of operation we inspected each machine in detail and the difference was considerable. There is no doubt that the Baldwin system had made the entire press environment cleaner and healthier.”

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