A new era for media begins

A new state-of-the-art printing press whirred into action yesterday heralding a dynamic new era in the history of the region’s newspapers.

Located in the Industrial Area, the QR300mn-printing complex owned by the Gulf Printing & Publishing Company that runs Gulf Times and sister daily Ar-rayah came alive with pre-tests and trial runs in readiness for its stunning debut.

The idea of upgrading the old printing press started in 2002, with the construction of the building in 2005. The building is designed by Eurographica, a company that specialises in printing press installations and incorporates the latest building management system.

Mohamed Sorour proudly called the operation “world class”.

“For the pre-printing process, the company has acquired the latest computer-to-plate (CTP) machines from the UK.

At an operating speed of 60 plates per hour (one a minute), two CTPs are dedicated to newspapers while two used for commercial purposes. The previous capacity was 40 plates an hour.

Editorial pages are sent over data-lines and burnt onto the plates.

“Having these machines is like owning a Mercedes Benz,” Sorour explained.

Once the plates are ready, they are moved to a mammoth printing unit which consists of 10 towers, 13 reel stands, four drivers (for the glossy paper) and can churn out copies at a mean speed of 50,000 copies per hour.

“This particular equipment from MAN Roland (Germany) gives us a capacity of printing 52 pages, including 36 (four-colour) pages and 16 black and white in one go,” he described the functions of the seemingly-complex machines.

The printed copies then travel, literally, through rails to the mail room of the post-printing stage where flyers and other material is inserted, bundled, strapped and dispatched – all automatically.

“No customer will have missing inserts in the newspaper as the machine itself rejects and throws the newspaper to the reject gauge where the missing material is inserted manually.”

The whole operation is managed from a control room. All the processes are fully-automated with the least amount of manual labour required.

According to the engineer, the idea of upgrading the old printing press started in 2002 with the construction of the building in 2005. The building itself is designed by Eurographica, a company that specialises in printing press installations and incorporates the latest building management system.

On completion, the investment in the building and commercial printing equipment was QR300mn.

“We now plan to get an ISO certification,” an enthusiastic Sorour announced.