In early March, ABB announced a series of orders from WIFAG for controls and automation solutions for newspaper presses in three In early March, ABB announced a series of orders from WIFAG for controls and automation solutions for newspaper presses in three different countries. ABB will supply three MPS control consoles for the operation of a new OF370S press for the Imprintsa printing house in Barcelona, Spain. ABB will also be supplying its production management system, MPS Production. Commissioning of the systems commences at the beginning of June this year and production on the press will start at the end of July.

The Italian printing group Diffusioni Grafiche is building a new printing plant in Alessandria in Piedmont, Italy that will house a WIFAG printing press built from units that were previously in service at La Stampa . These include an OF7 folder, which has been converted to shaftless operation, and eighteen OF370 bridge units. ABB will update the ABB control systems that are already built in to the press units, reconfigure an already existing MPS production management system and provide two new MPS control consoles. The commissioning will run from the middle of September with the systems going into full production on 19 November 2007.

Finally, ABB will supply control systems for additional bridge units being supplied to Le Télégramme de Brest to extend their existing press at Morlaix, France. The existing MPS control consoles and MPS production will be reconfigured accordingly. The extensions will be commissioned in November 2007 and go into production at the start of December.

ABB's Business Unit Printing is the leading automation supplier to the newspaper industry. Their systems provide unique and totally integrated end-to-end control, predict potential problems and provide management information essential to improving profitability. For this ABB has developed, more than anyone else, the flexible concept of seamless networking -- integration of all the systems involved in the production process. The company calls this SPINE (Seamless Process Integration for Newspaper Enterprises). The concept adds flexibility, and brings together all production process while providing newspaper printers with integrated real-time management information.