A KBA Colora installed for joint venture Borås Tidning Tryckeri in 2002 is being upgraded as one of the original partners regains ownership of its Viared printshop.

Local publisher Gota Media - which owns local newspaper Borås Tidning and used to print in the town - is buying Bold Printing out of the partnership, and will upgrade the four-tower press installed for BTT. It consists of three four-high and one five-high towers with one folder, and has KBA's 'Leittechnik' mix of its on-press automation and EAE´s section controller, control desks, planning and reporting with a Bosch Rexroth SYNAX drive.

A 2012 order for DCOS closed-loop inspection system - with replacement of the EAE ink-preset system - created a situation where the main automation systems on the press are from four different vendors based four different technology platforms.

A decision on retrofitting the systems to fight obsolescence and future-proof operations has been delayed because of the change in ownership, but the new owner has decided to act, awarding DCOS the contract to become the automation partner for all the press automation.

"For us this was an opportunity to unify our automations systems into one hardware and software platform," says BTT production and technical manager Måns Källqvist. "The openness and push towards standard non-proprietary components by DCOS were also important for us."

DCOS has developed a drive and control system solution for the 'Leittechnik' presses which involves a complete change in technology, removing the many fieldbus systems to run new systems only over ethernet. The complete EAE system will be replaced, the obsolete ABB KT98 and KT94 PLC on the press will be replaced by standard I/O systems, and the Bosch Rexroth motion controllers will be removed and integrated in on unified drive and control system by DCOS.

The retrofit starts onsite in 2020, and last for about three months.

The press is the third KBA within an hour's drive to be retrofitted following projects on at Henreco on 2012 and V-TAB Landvetter in 2017.

Pictured: Tommy Johnsson (left) with DCOS' Mattias Andersson and Måns Källqvist of BTT