Six Berliner-sized presses that print the Guardian in London and Manchester are being brought up-to-date with new PECOM controls.

The manroland Colorman presses, installed in 2005 with the paper’s format change, print the six weekday editions of The Guardian and its Sunday stablemate The Observer.

The 12 consoles on the presses – 20 towers and four folders in London, and ten towers with two folders in Manchester – are being retrofitted with packages for the PECOM control desk system, and PressManager server including a ‘hot standby-server’ that can instantly take over from the PPM in case of a breakdown, ensuring “the highest-level

National newspaper operations production director Brett Lawrence says electronic devices wear out and require updating, “especially if they include spinning parts such as fans and hard drives”.

Controllers on the Guardian presses operate a 24-hour, 365-day year: “We were worrying that a failure could occur, and in order to ensure a maximum on-press availability we decided to carry out this upgrade,” he says.

The new console controllers do not include any spinning parts, making them more reliable against mechanical failures and also preventing dust particles from intruding through cooling fans.

The upgrades were performed by engineers from manroland web systems in Germany and an electrical technician from the UK subsidiary. The project has continued with automated diagnostic servers being replaced.

The retrofits set the course for future extensions and additional functionality.