IFRA

With a so-called "Scroll Edition" the Axel Springer publishing corporation conducted a “unique media experiment” on 1 July and published a special edition of Welt Kompakt (the little sister of the German national daily newspaper, Die Welt). The product is unusual in several respects: Firstly, the news stories were not written and compiled by professional newspaper journalists, but by “bloggers, tweeters, etc.”, as indicated in the deck. Secondly, the copy must be turned 90 degrees (back margin up) before it can be read. 

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The research by Dr. Ahmed Mahmoud Yosri Ahmed (Teacher, Faculty of Applied Arts, Printing, Publishing & Packaging Sector, Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt) sets out to establish an up-to-date, multi-parameter paper & board grades classification methodology, avoiding all the problems involved with the actual classification method based on weight. Also this new methodology should cover all the paper, board & corrugated grades, without any exception or restriction that grammage classification implies.

Druckzentrum Rhein-Main (DRM) in Rüsselsheim, Germany, has reached the halfway point of construction and celebrated on 18th March 2010 with a roof-raising ceremony.

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Semi-commercial jobs which would normally require heatset printing are being produced in coldset at the Singapore Press Holding (SPH) Media Centre Plant on their manroland UNISET press using various types of newsprint. "We have done posters, leaflets, newsletters & magazines. Our customers include banks, retail outlets, government bodies, hospitals, associations, etc.," says Anthony Cheng, Executive Vice-President of Production at SPH. "The financial crisis actually brought about opportunities in that companies that are used to glossy heatset promotional materials are driven to look at alternatives because of budget constraints, and have begun to accept coldset newsprint stock (of higher grammage 70-95 gsm and wood-free or hybrid grade that are much brighter in shade) as an viable alternative, achieving more or less the same marketing objectives. This has brought about an unexpected but much welcome revenue stream to us,” he said. Cheng’s team has also broke new grounds by successfully printing on translucent newsprint with coldset printing process and normal coldset inks.

In July, WAN-IFRA, in cooperation with the Faculty of Media at HTWK Leipzig (FH) in Germany, launched a research project focused on “Sustainability in newspaper production.” The planned 18-month project will investigate the ecological and economic sustainability of newspaper production, with the primary goal of developing a reference model to help determine the impact that newspapers have on the environment during their life cycle.

Ronald Weidel, scientific collaborator at HTWK, is in charge of the project at Leipzig, and here is an excerpt of interview with him that will be featured in the upcoming May-June edition of WAN-IFRA Magazine.

• Interview with Ronald Weidel

The first step of any print process standardization project is the standardization of the raw materials used, i.e. paper and ink. Unless these materials are consistently within the standards, it is very difficult to maintain the print process in conformance with ISO 12647-3. For newsink, we have ISO 2846-2:2007. This standard specifies the ink colours and transparency requirements of the newsinks. The research was done by the WAN-IFRA Research and Material Testing Centre (RMTC) in Chennai, India: www.wan-ifra.org/rmtc 
 

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The technology of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is used where large numbers of product identifications have to be performed safely in high speed and large volumes without manual intervention.Trading companies and warehouses as well as department store chains are making use of RFID and drive the further development of this technology.

Since the publication of the IFRA Special Report on “The Use of Radio Frequency Identification in Newspaper Production” we see a constant development of RFID. Components get smaller and device prices drop with growing numbers. Today RFID tags or parts of them can even be produced by special printing techniques (“Printed Electronics”). Time was right to run a real life case study with RFID tagged newsprint paper reels in newspaper printing environment.

The WAN-IFRA Special Report “Paper Reel Management with RFID Technology – A Case Study” (01.2010) was written by Prof Yale T. Herer and Prof Avy Shtub from the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel, and Assaf Avrahami, CEO of Yedioth Information Technologies (YIT).

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 "New Printing Plants" is the title of a new WAN-IFRA Special Report. It originates from a project that was managed by a German-Indian research group with researchers from the Technical University of Chemnitz and the University of Manipal. The IFRA South Asian Committee steered the project. Although the starting point was clearly focused on the Indian market, the guidelines and detailed checklists provided are, without any doubt, of high value for newspaper companies all over the world that are about to start projects to build new printing plants.

The 64-pages report is already online in English; German and French versions will folllow: free download for WAN/IFRA members from

• www.ifra.com/specialreports