A custom-designed KBA Commander CL is taking China’s Guiyang Daily Media Group beyond newspapers into semicommercial products.

The press is the second KBA in six years, and lifts the group into a higher quality bracket as it responds to a shift from print to online media, also noticeable in China. Founded in 1957, it publishes five daily newspapers and three magazines including the Guiyang Daily and the Guiyang Evening News, a 280,000-circulation regional daily copies which distinguishes itself in terms of quality.

In 2006, it installed a six-tower, three-folder KBA Comet, which is now being relocated to the new printing plant.

The new double-width Commander CL with a 546 mm cut-off is configured with two four-high towers, two reelstands, a hot-air dryer and two single jaw folders – instead of the double folder usual in this market – enabling the towers to operate independently.

A flexible superstructure allows a variety of web widths to be handled under automatic control, with a heatset dryer providing for inhouse production of the group’s magazine-style titles. Automatic roller locks, unique in China, allow the rollers to be set quickly for optimum quality, and automatic washing systems also contribute to short makeready times.

Printing house director Feng Xiao Ping says the aim is also to tap into new markets: “With our new all-rounder we will be one step ahead of the competition once again and able to set new benchmarks in the Chinese newspaper industry”, he says.

Right: The Commander CL’s hot-air dryer enables inhouse production of semicommercials

On our homepage: (from left) KBA China’s web press sales general manager Han Shaosheng, plant director Feng Xiaoping, and Andreas Friedrich, who is KBA’s general manager for web sales and service in northern Asia