Japan’s Kochi Shimbun Company has marked the commissioning of its Mahoroba Printing Centre – and start-up of two Mitsubishi 4x1 presses – with a formal celebration.

Mahoroba is an ancient Japanese word which evokes a far-off land full of bliss and peace, and some 150 guests were on hand to sample the tranquil surroundings of the new facility.

Kochi Shimbun Company president Hayao Miyata and Kochi Shimbun Printing

Service Company president Tadashi Sakiyama welcomed guests, together with Mitsubishi Corporation executive vice president Eichi Tanabe and and MHI-P&P sales general manager Keiji Katayama.

The two new DiamondSpirit presses bring the total installed to 19 in Japan and elsewhere, with a further 13 on order.

The presses for ‘Kochi Shimbun’ have been equipped with Mitsubishi’s DiamondEye and Printplex technologies. DiamondEye is an inline print quality system with automatic colour matching. More than 600 image sensors are now installed on over 60 presses.

Printplex enables a press to be split, with one double folder serving as two single folders, and individual towers connected separately to either folder. First commercial application was on Nikkan Sports Printing’s DiamondSpirit presses in 2008.

At Kochi Shimbun, the two presses are rated at 80,000 cph, and have a cutoff of 546mm with a web width of 1626mm. Each line has two towers, three mono units and a 2:2 double rotary folder, with five reelstands. Mitsubishi press control systems include ink presetting, automatic colour register control with fan-out correction, and automatic dual web tension control.

Pictured at the official ribbon-cutting ceremony are (from left) Eichi Tanabe, Hayao Miyata, Tadashi Sakiyama and Keiji Katayama.