Picture Gallery: The Hindu plant in Bengaluru
Kasturi and Sons’ Bengaluru print plant is located in one lakh sq/ft area and produces 1.9 lakh copies of three newspaper titles per day. It consumes 1,200 CTP plates and 450 tonnes of newsprint per month.
In March 2013, the plant commissioned a Mitsubishi DiamondSpirit with a speed of 75,000 copies an hour and a cut-off size of 546 mm. The 4x1 web offset printing press is equipped with three towers and two rotary folders to produce 24-pages colour.
Words and Photographs: Rahul Kumar26 Sep 2013 | By PrintWeek India
The Hindu plant at Bengaluru was visited by more than 50 delegates from Wan-Ifra 2013. The plant is spread across an area of more than one lakh sq/ft
Delegates observe the control panel of the 4x1 web offset printing press. The press was installed in March 2013
Newsprint stock at the Bengaluru plant. The printing facility consumes around 450 tonnes of newsprint per month
An view of the intricate wiring in the Mitsubishi DiamondSpirit
One of the printing press operators prepares the auto-reel plaster for uninterrupted paper-feeding to the machine
A look at the ink duct
The online ink transfer system is attached to the printing press; this saves printing ink and manpower, and provides consistent print quality
The printing press operator mounts the plates. The plant consumes around 400 CTP plates per day
A closer view of the printing press during production. The Mitsubishi press prints around 1.9 lakh copies of English daily - The Hindu, business daily - Business Line and the Tamil daily - Hindu Tamil
Post-printing, the press operators dismount the plates from plate cylinders
The newspaper production company saves on printing plates and gets accurate registration with the newly installed 4x1 printing press
The mailroom system from Seiken handles the post-print activities at The Hindu
Mailroom system in full swing
Jogging section of the mailroom system which collects the newspapers
A bundle of printed newspaper being collected by the Seiken mailroom system
The packed bundle is sent to the automatic wrapping machine
Packed and strapped set of newspapers ready for delivery
The packed bundles going through a final round of manual count-and-check before dispatch. The Hindu and Business Line are distributed in Bengaluru and near by areas, whereas, the Hindu Tamil is distributed in Tamil Nadu
Stacked bundles of The Hindu, Business Line and the Tamil daily are ready to be delivered to distributors
V Harikrishnan, deputy general manager for printing, says that performance of the machine has met their expectations.
Wan-Ifra delegates board the bus; and return to their hotels