Lehtisepät Oy, the printing company of a leading Finnish Newspaper Group – Keskisuomalainen Oyj, with 5 print locations and 56 publications (the highest number of titles for a single group) have awarded the contract to replace their Wifag WPOS control systems on the OF790/470 Press located at their Jyvaskyla site to Harland Simon.
The award followed a thorough investigation into all the possible options available for the project and against strong competition Harland Simon was selected for their innovative yet affordable approach to replace both WPOS 1 and 2 generations with a single flexible solution.
The solution is based upon the use of off-the-shelf, hardware from the Rockwell Automation range of PLCs and drives, ensuring local availability and long production and support lifetimes.
The scope of supply includes the replacement of the WPOS1 controls on three OF790 towers and the OF790 folder controls, and the WPOS2 controls on the OF470 tower and folder.
The order adds yet another option to the range of Harland Simon's retrofit solutions for a wide range of OEM systems which already includes Honeywell, manroland, EAE, Goss, Allen-Bradley and Mitsubishi and broadens the range of those offering WPOS replacements to the market.
As with the majority of these solutions the conversion will be completed around Lehtisepät's busy production schedule so that no additional down time is required.
Harland Simon are committed to the Nordic market and Finland in particular, and with the ongoing support of Pressline will continue to pursue all opportunities in a market that is likely to see significant activity over the coming years.
"I have been visiting the team at Lehtisepät and discussing their needs and requirements for 6 years which I think is a reflection that we are in this market for the long term and hope that we can follow this interesting project with many more in Finland" said Rob Watson, Harland Simon's Sales Director.
Kari Kivinen, Plant Director of Lehtisepät commented "We are convinced that Harland Simon have an effective replacement for our existing WPOS systems which is based upon standard hardware. An extremely important point for us was that Harland Simon is able to install their system on the running press – without longer production breaks. Also, their extensive experience and positive reputation in the retrofit market gives us the confidence that the project will be completed without any delay or disruption".
