"We have over 20 years of experience working together with Honeywell. The reliability requirements in newspaper production are very high, since production outages or delays are very expensive. The reliability and quality of Honeywell’s products have enabled us to maintain our production capability day after day. Their service organization has always been available to help us. With the implementation of Honeywell’s Closed Loop Color Control solution we experienced improved quality control, stable printing quality in newspaper printing, and the ability to focus staff on those areas in which they are needed most. We look forward to this making the printing job easier and easier."

Teemu Niemi, Process Manager, Sanoma

Sanoma, the leading newspaper publisher in Finland, planned to update its color printing processes in newspaper production and had to find a way to automate and control inking on the press. Drawing on a 20-year partnership with Honeywell, Sanoma chose Honeywell’s Closed Loop Color Control to help the plant with one of the most resource intensive and crucial parts of the process – the printing. Installed in the span of eight months to help correct the color printing process, Sanoma experienced the following benefits:

• Improved quality control and automation of color printing processes 
• Reallocation of staff resources to those areas needed most instead of constant color monitoring 
• Stabilization of print quality and production rate 
• Easier printing process through use of system and subsequent training 
• Improved decision making through better management and reporting tools

Sanoma is the newspaper publishing division of SanomaWSOY. SanomaWSOY is the leading media company in the Nordic region, with a presence in over 20 European countries. In Finland, the company has a broad portfolio of media activities. Internationally, it focuses on magazine publishing, educational materials and press distribution.

In addition to Sanoma, the company has four other divisions: Sanoma Magazines is one of the five largest magazine publishers in Europe; WSOY is Finland's largest book publisher and Europe’s sixth largest educational publisher; SWelcom focuses on electronic media in Finland; and Rautakirja is the market leader in press distribution and specialized retailing in Finland and the Baltic countries. SanomaWSOY net sales in 2005 were EUR 2.6 billion with a record operating profit of EUR 301.3 million.

Increasing the automation level of the newspaper production process has been a long-term key objective of Sanoma. By automating and controling the color processes, the company can also increase product quality and provide a competitive differentiator in the fight for advertisements and readers.

On most offset presses the colors are controlled via ink keys and ink ductors. Good pre-setting with an optimally maintained press can quickly lead to saleable quality products at startup. However, due to the variations in the printing process, continuous adjustments of inking are always required. These variations are due to different behavior of printing units, warming up of the press and paper characteristics.

Traditionally the color adjustments are done manually on each ink zone, which brings into play the human factor – people perceive colors differently, which leads to variations in color quality. This manual process can also lead to several disadvantages including intensive labor requirements, lengthened production time and increased material consumption.

Sanoma turned to Honeywell for a solution to improve the quality of color control on its printing presses.

“We have been working with Honeywell for more than 20 years and trust the quality and reliability of its products and the dedication of its people,” said Teemu Niemi, Process Manager, Sanoma. “Sanoma selected Honeywell to install its Closed Loop Color Control solution for the COLORMAN press due to its long experience with the company and long history in color control on commercial and packaging printing presses.”

Sanoma currently prints newspapers at five different sites in Finland. The presses at all these sites are equipped with Honeywell’s Printa Press Control System.

“Sanoma had to find a way to manage color throughout the entire production and address common problems such as inconsistent density values, incorrect images from pre-press and common waste contributors,” continued Niemi.

Honeywell’s Closed Loop Color Control solution is part of the Printa Quality Control System, which key features are:

• Closed loop color density control 
• Closed loop four-color and cut-off register control
• Fewer claims related to quality problems
• Material savings in paper and ink waste
• Reduced quality assurance costs by automating measurement and reporting

“The trend in recent years has been to add four-color print to newspapers basically on every page but you must find a way to keep control of this – all without losing any revenue and/or profit. Honeywell enabled us to update our system and automatically control the color process so that we can focus on other jobs at hand,” concluded Niemi.