ABB gets major order for MPS PlateWorkflow

One of the leading suppliers of automation solutions for the newspaper industry, ABB recently announced a major order for its plate production management system, MPS PlateWorkflow. The order comes from the NeueZuercherZeitung (NZZ), one of Switzerland’s best-known newspapers. ABB will also supply the hardware for the new system. This means that ABB’s virtual machine (VM) concept based on Microsoft’s Hyper-V configuration can be used. The new system is expected to go into operation in August of this year. MPS PlateWorkflow replaces the existing solution at the NZZ’s print site in Schlieren, just outside Zurich. “But this is not a simple one-to-one replacement,” says Boris Falk, head of sales at ABB Printing, “The new solution provides a wide range of new functionality that makes the prepress management easier not only for the NZZ but also for its customers.” One of these new functions that helps NZZ serve its customers better is the ‘external control center’. This gives customers of the NZZ an online means to check and approve print products using the actual print data (ripped TIFFs). Authorized users can not only browse through the whole print product, but can also inspect and approve the individual pages and separations as well as the positioning of content within the print area.