When you drive past the Campbell Industrial
Park exit on the H-1, you cannot help but notice the tall building standing
alone on the makai side of the freeway. This building houses the Honolulu
Advertiser’s Kapolei production and distribution facility that services all
Hawaii. Put into service in August 2004, the building houses a world-class
state-of-the-art publishing and handling machinery that you can be sure
involves the design principles of mechanical engineering. Even though the
Honolulu Advertiser is celebrating its 150th Anniversary this year
servicing the people of Hawaii, it is by outstanding achievement and
coincidence that the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) – Hawaii
Section’s 2006 Outstanding Project Award is presented to the Advertiser’s
Kapolei Publishing Facility.
In its eleventh year, this award recognizes
Hawaii mechanical engineering related projects of significance based on design
concept, economic feasibility, social benefits, and environmental preservation.
Members and guests of ASME-HI saw first-hand on May 11, 2005 the Advertiser’s
production and distribution facility in Kapolei including their
state-of-the-art MAN Roland offset printing press. This tour helped validate
the selection for this award.
The facility is in the right location, in
the master-planned City of Kapolei, adjacent to Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor,
and with direct access to providers of trans-Pacific fiber optics cables. It
uses an energy-efficient design following HECO recommendations in purchasing
energy-efficient equipment. The following is a brief description of the
facility. Most of this description is taken from the August 22, 2004
Commemorative Edition of The Honolulu Advertiser.
From Start to
Finish
From the massive on-site warehouse, the
rolls of paper each weighing as much as 2,500 pounds are picked up by the
Aurosys paper handling system using a robotic system to transport and place the
rolls at the bottom of the press.
The headliner is the German manufactured
MAN Roland REGIOMAN presses which deliver more full-color photos and higher
print quality than its predecessor presses. The press line consists of two
presses of six printing towers each, for a total of 12 towers located in the
tall part of the building. Each tower has seven levels from the bottom where
the rolls of paper are loaded, to the 2nd and 3rd levels
where color and black and white printing is done, to the upper levels where the
printed-paper flow is controlled and guided to the folders on the second level.
The presses use the offset printing process
where large digital data files from the downtown editorial and administrative
offices are received in Kapolei via high-speed telecommunication line using T-1
line connectivity and sent to a computer-to-plate machine, which exposes a
plate for the presses. The plate is processed resulting in two areas, a
non-image area that attracts water and the image area that attracts the ink.
The printing plate transfers the image on to a blanket picking up only the
ink-attracted image area. This image is then transferred (offset) from the
blanket to the paper.
From the pressroom, printed and folded
sections are carried by conveyor through the packaging and assembly room where pre-printed
supplements are inserted and combined with live news sections, then stacked and
strapped and ready for the delivery trucks.
This was a very brief description of the
facility. Obviously it is recommended that you take a tour of the facility so
you can get a good picture and understanding of how the newspaper you read
every morning is printed and assembled.
Acknowledgement
ASME-HI thanks The Honolulu Advertiser’s
Jennifer Dang, NIE Coordinator, and Bill Bogart, Vice President of Production,
for the comprehensive tour and helping to make this award possible during the
Advertiser’s 150th Anniversary.