Printing press manufacturer puts Fanuc in control

Adast Adamov, a major worldwide exporter of offset printing machines, uses GE Fanuc 90T-30 PLCs for the essential control of its largest presses.

Adast Adamov, a major worldwide exporter of offset printing machines, uses GE Fanuc 90T-30 PLCs for the essential control of its largest presses.

QuickPanels were chosen as Operator Interfaces (OIs) to provide the machine operator with touch-screen control.

Adamov Engineering Works, at Adamov between Brno and Ceska Trebova, is based at a site that has a long history of manufacturing going back over 150 years.

Adast was established in the 1950s as state owned company.

The first printing machines were built at Adamov in 1954, and the company was eventually privatised in 1992.

Now the company is a major player in the printing industry, employing around 2000 people and exporting 80% of its products to over 90 countries, including the US.

The company attained ISO 9001 certification in 1998.

It offers its customers worldwide warranty and after sales service through a network of local technicians and agents.

Development of the printing press In the early days, printing processes were controlled by hard-wired relays.

Automated systems were developed in the 1980s using PLCs which coped with text and graphics using proprietary hardware and software.

However a demand soon arose for systems with an open architecture, enabling the linking of software and hardware from different companies in order to maximise performance.

To meet this requirement, Adast selected GE Fanuc 90T-30 PLCs to provide easily programmable control.

The GE Fanuc PLCs were particularly attractive to Adast for their versatility at an attractive price, and their availability worldwide.

The PLC itself is small in size.

With the introduction of the 90-30 and the removal of a number of ancillary control devices, Adast was able to reduce the size of the machine control cabinet and thus incorporate it onto the mainframe of the printer.

Thus customers finished up with printing presses with a smaller footprint.

The Adast Dominant 705C DI Series is a family of offset printing machines that provides printing direct from electronic format for paper sizes up to A2, avoiding the need for separate film and plate processing.

The series was originally developed in the US to meet the demands of that market, but it is now exported worldwide.

It is the largest digital printing system in the world employing Computer-to-Press technology (CTP), producing colour prints up to 475mm x 650mm.

The 705C DI may be fitted with 4 or 5 printing towers, a laminating unit and/or a perforator.

A laser process produces the printing plates directly from electronic format under the control of the PLC.

The dry, direct-to-print process, reduces manual intervention and enables rapid change from one print job to the next.

Thus printers can rapidly respond to market requirements.

Typical make-ready times are reduced to less than half.

Print production costs are typically 30% less than by traditional techniques.

The machines also have the added benefit of producing less chemical waste.

The family is particularly suitable for print runs between 500 and 30,000.

They print at up to 10,000 IPH.

The 90-30 also controls all the press functions.

These include printing pressures, sheet transport and the inker unit, using pneumatic valves.

The presses are also fitted with a touch-sensitive QuickPanel OI which indicates operating conditions and any failures which occur.

Many special functions on the QuickPanel make the press operation easier as it is also programmed to provide prompts to the operator during running of the machine.

The OI also contains a revolution counter and pre-selection counter.

The whole system is under the control of a dedicated PC operating in a reliable Windows NT environment.

This enables the adoption of any of the commonly used DTP / prepress software packages.

Adast also manufactures the traditional-plate, offset Dominant 706A Series for 1 to 6 colour printing on sheets up to A2, and the Dominant 806A Series for paper sizes up to B2, also in up to 6 colours.

Both of these families also use GE Fanuc PLCs and QuickPanel OIs.

A number of accessories can be fitted to the machines to provide, for example, numbering, overprinting, perforation and drilling.

According to Michael Aliger, technical director at Adast , "From the 1990s, the introduction of the GE Fanuc PLC has resulted in far more reliable and compact machines.

Floor space per machine has been reduced significantly, and with downtime greatly reduced, our customers' business becomes more profitable as they are spending more time printing." Aliger continued, "As Adast exports to over 90 countries, it is vital that our machines can be serviced, and spares obtained, anywhere in the world.

GE Fanuc's global presence satisfies this need for the control system.".

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