German regional publisher Presse-Druck und Verlags is upgrading planning and management software technology at its plant in Augsburg.

Contractor ABB - with whom the printing customer has a 30-year relationship - says the update will provide greater operator insights, create virtualisation of processes and reduce maintenance.

The plant processes 25,000 tons of paper and 350 tons of colour ink a year, so automated components in the facility must work seamlessly. Regional newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine has a daily print-run of more than 350,000 copies.

ABB will install its MPS Cockpit for planning and management of the entire production process, MPS Insight for process reporting and analysis and MPS InsertManager to support and coordinate of sales, production planning, storage and distribution of newspaper inserts.

The tools will assist operators and create virtualisation of the system to run with PostgreSQL, allowing independence from the hardware and operating system lifecycle. This enables the application to be tested on and moved to a new platform when required.

Presse-Druck und Verlags technical director Andreas Ullmann says the updates ensure a modern, fit-for-purpose infrastructure for printing the newspaper titles and for economically managing the entire manufacturing process from editorial to the reader's letterbox. "From working with ABB over many years, we are confident this system will provide the robust platform we now require, with security and backup built in," he said.

ABB head of printing Damian Staedeli says having worked with printing companies for several decades, ABB was committed to production optimisation in the industry. "We use lessons learned from across our diverse global range of industry applications to make these key improvements."

The MPS software systems will provide greater functionality for managing printing processes and for optimising the print process. Europe currently has ABB's largest installed base for printing customers, followed by the USA.