DFM's Bay Area News Group is to put manroland controls on its Goss presses as part of an upgrade of its Concord, California, print facility.

The move is part of a growing trend for press and systems manufacturers to tailor their technology to suit "third party" equipment, and follows a project last year to fit manroland's PECOM controls on a 12-year-old Goss Headliner Offset press the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune.

The Goss Colorliner presses at Digital First Media's Concord site print a range of work including the Mercury News, East Bay Times and 29 community newspaper titles.

manroland says a controls upgrade will access the PECOM-X ControlDesk through off-the-shelf electronic gateways, increasing capabilities to make job changeovers faster, reduce waste, improve colour and register quality, and raise the level of format flexibility for printed products.

A modular approach to the unit controls upgrade will ensure upgrades and replacement of press sections does not interfere with production. Components with logic reporting technology will be able to be used with touchscreens at the desks and on manroland's MobilPad consoles.

Upgrades also include improvements to the RTP, replacing older components with non-contact parts for longer life and reliability, while reflected-light scanner web break detectors will be installed, along with upgrades to page displays and PLC control of digital inkers and spraybar systems.

Bay Area News Group team members including operational personnel led by operations/printing director Kevin Garris scoped future performance parameters before making the decision.

DFM operations executive vice president William Higginson says the improvements will not only make it possible to keep the equipment relevant for the long-run, but will increase productivity and efficiency. "Our team did extensive research on what our preferred scope for the project would be, and manroland came up with the most comprehensive solution that will carry us into the future."

Pictured: manroland's Mobilpad control tablet