DCOS has installed its closed-loop density, register and cut-off system on a 26-year-old KBA A510 press at Finnish media group Kaakon Viestintä.

The company employs 800 people and is the leading newspaper group in the southeast region of Finland. Over recent years, it has restructured, merging three production sites into one facility in Kouvola, an hour-and-a-half east of Helsinki.

With seven daily newspapers a million copies per week. Production manager Matti Härmä says it took a "quite long" process to evaluate options and their project team visited three DCOS installations, all on fairly old presses.

The DCOS camera technology to be installed includes ten CRC4 density and colour register cameras, and 18 PTC4 cut-off cameras. The Honeywell control system will be partly retrofitted and all quality functions will be taken over and be controlled by DCOS, including spray dampening.

"As in any investment these days the ROI is a key factor that requires in depth analysis," says chief information officer Lasse Palminen. "The reference sites we visited were very helpful with results and feedback, and were also very convincing in their experience and satisfaction."

With the commissioning now complete - following a mid-March start - the system is serving its purpose well. Average start-up waste has been reduced by 50 per cent, and is expected to continue to decrease in the next months.