Concentra Media (Newspaper Application)

:Polaris X and :Arkitex at Concentra Media

Concentra Media is a well known Newspaper Printer located in Beringen, Belgium. To print their 23 titles, they use :Arkitex to manage the files before they are sent to the :Polaris X Platesetters.

Concentra Media

A member of the Concentra Group, Concentra Media in Beringen, Belgium, is much more than a newspaper publisher. It is a full-scale multimedia group comprising newspapers, free local papers, magazines, regional radio and TV stations and online products.

Concentra Media is the offspring of the 1996 merger between publishing concerns Concentra Hasselt and De Vlijt Antwerp. First known as RUG (Regionale Uitgeversgroep), the company took its new name to reflect the scope of its enhanced product portfolio and to ready itself for the future.

Today, the Concentra Media printing operation, which represents an investment of about 62.5 million euros, is one of the best equipped in Benelux. Five-time winner of the Ifra Colour Quality Award, Concentra Media is in a class of its own.
The company prints 23 titles each week, which include 4.5 million newspapers. Four of the titles are dailies: Gazet van Antwerpen, Het Belang van Limburg, Metro and The Wall Street Journal Europe. The balance represents a variety of local papers and magazines. The Concentra Media publications are Gazet van Antwerpen, Metro and Het Belang van Limburg.

Because of the variety, the complexity and the large number of files coming from the editorial sites in Hasselt, Antwerp and Brussels, the company decided to install the :Arkitex workflow system. Concentra Media wants to communicate in a flexible way with its customers; that is why PDF and TIFF/G4 files are used.
The advantage of PDF is the easy integration, fast transmission and last minute editing of the pages in case of serious problems.
With TIFF/G4 files the customer has the guarantee that the content of his pages cannot be modified during production. Once the pages have been transferred via the FTP flow, the data are managed by the :Arkitex workflow system and sent to the :Polaris X platesetters.
According to Concentra Media director P. Huybrechts, the company chose the :Polaris X because of its reliability, productivity and the positive experience with Agfa Graphics as a systems supplier.
In the :Polaris X the plates are positioned with a 3-point register system, while the interleaf paper is removed automatically. After the plates have been imaged, they are punched on a Barenschee video punching system.
"We also preferred the :Lithostar LAP-V silver plates because of their high quality and reliability", said Mr. Huybrechts.
"The major benefits of the violet technology are the lifetime and low cost of the laser. But also the cleaner processing conditions that result in a reduced maintenance frequency of the plate processors."

The three :Polaris X platesetters have a total capacity of 600 plates per hour. Out of 1400 plates per day, 300-400 are produced between 21.30 hrs and 22.30 hrs on the :Polaris X. Yearly plate consumption is about 500,000 plates.

Concentra Media reduced the distance between the :Polaris X and the printing presses so that the time gained in prepress with the automated CtP workflow would not be lost transporting plates to the presses.

The complete platemaking system is driven by :Arkitex. This system includes three RIPs at the printing site in Beringen.
The Dynamic Annotation function of :Arkitex puts a barcode in the gripper of the plate. This ensures that the plates are sorted automatically in the plate sorter by print group, identifying what page goes where for which title and on what press. This eliminates costly and time-consuming errors.
:Arkitex manages every step in the workflow. It generates log files that inform the operator about the status of every page, which plates have been imaged, and which still need to be output. Via a web application of the :Arkitex client, customers can approve their pages and follow up the production remotely.
Agfa Graphics and EAE, the company responsible for press management and process control, developed an interface that enables automatic ink-key settings.
This results in a substantial reduction of the paper waste during startup.

Concentra Media prints on four coldset König & Bauer Commander presses. The presses print 64 pages (50% b&w, 50% colour) or 48 full-colour broadsheet pages with a maximum speed of 42000 rev./ hour. The page size is broadsheet (405 x 570 mm) or tabloid (285 x 405 mm).

About 10 trucks per day take care of the paper supply. From the main warehouse, paper rolls go to the conditioned pre-load room where a 1.5 day supply is stored. The EAE system reads the barcode data such as number, weight and type of paper of every paper roll. The unpacked rolls are automatically transported by the EAE system to the presses.

The mailroom equipped with Ferag transport systems and the pressroom are nearby on the ground level to facilitate shipping.