Press maker manroland Goss has had second thoughts about selling new newspaper presses: Maybe a retrofit of an existing or used press would do the job.

And maybe the project could be staged over time...

Engineered solutions manager Matthias Heissler says that with it seeming that printing companies are merging every day, readiness to invest in a press with a production cycle of 20 years is "accordingly low".

Retrofits are "a real alternative" to buying a new press, he says. Benefits include ensuring availability of the existing system for many years to come and decreasing operating cost by the improved availability of spare parts.

Small partial retrofits "for little money and much benefit" - what the newly-merged company calls smart retrofit solutions - allow for new efficiency and productivity result and extend the service life of the systems. "For manroland Goss, smart solutions are conventional solutions that are modified conceptionally in such a way that customer requests can be satisfied even better," says Heissler.

Examples include unit controller and interbus loop retrofits - which can now be realised component by component, or even sensor type by sensor type - and DC drive retrofits, which can now be carried out step by step.

At section and print-unit computers, retrofits can now be raised to the new platform at "reasonable cost" thanks to newly developed software.

In addition to virtualisation of PPM software on customer hardware as an alternative to a Pecom-X hardware retrofit, Control Center software can now be offered as a virtual solution.

"All these examples offer real added value for the customer, they keep presses young and sustainable, extend their availability and durability and update their automation," says Heissler.