manroland has completed a swift nerve centre transplant for HT Media in New Delhi, replacing the interbus loop on a 12-year-old Colorman in just a fortnight.

India service manager David Popp says the "investment in contemporary technology" was a basic precondition to ensure at least seven to ten more years of secure production, "at a fraction of the costs of a new acquisition".

Popp says retrofits of the controls and operating elements have become particularly popular among users of manroland web systems' newspaper presses. "This also applies to our long term partners in India," he says.

"The electronics and the connected sensors and software or operating elements, are currently subject to much faster technological change than previously. Thankfully it would appear that this does not affect the mechanical components, which have been designed for decades of continuous load."

At HT Media - publisher of the Hindustan Times, one of the world's biggest English language dailies - a complete exchange of the obsolete the Interbus Loop has delivered a more reliable system and spare parts which can be used on other presses.

The new software and electronics provide additional features including more detailed error descriptions, enabling faster and more precise troubleshooting through ever more complex sensors and automation innovations. The new system links all sensors and actuators directly with one computer, so faults such as a faulty component can be precisely located and exchanged without major delays.

This also improves the diagnosis possibilities for manroland web systems' remote diagnostics TeleSupportCenter.

Working closely with HT Media, the retrofit was completed within two weeks and that without any interference with nightly production. "The new technology was installed by manroland parallel to the existing system, then tested and after approval by the customer, commissioned," says Popp.