Fairfax Media has completed a successful upgrade of its regional printing press operation at Tamworth, New South Wales with a strong focus on safety.
Following the recent restructuring of the regional printing operation, printing presses from areas including Wagga, Nowra and Warrnambool were relocated to the new greenfield facility at Tamworth.
In addition to printing its main paper, The Northern Daily Leader, Tamworth Press is also responsible for publishing newspapers for the surrounding regional towns. Each week the print centre goes through 15 to 20 tonnes of newsprint. January is one of the busier periods with additional print runs needed to meet the demands of Tamworth’s country music festival. The team produces around 20,000 to 30,000 copies of the festival guide.
To continue to meet these requirements while putting safety first, a risk assessment was conducted - with participation from Goss International and Rockwell Automation - to provide insight into ways to improve safety outcomes and productivity. Based on the findings, an innovative safety solution was commissioned at the site.
“As a company, we are very focused on safety," said David Hedges, plant manager at Tamworth Press. "We want our workers to go home in the same condition they arrived to work that day so safety is paramount in everything we do here."
As part of a national move towards increased plant safety, regulations require the employer to undertake the risk assessment process for either new or relocated plants.
“Fairfax have rigid safety standards and take safety very seriously so this safety solution went the extra mile to exceed current requirements,” said Matt Sharkady, GM at Goss International. “Having worked with Rockwell Automation previously, we knew that their control and drive solution would meet these safety requirements. In addition, the fact that they had an experienced, local team that could do all the engineering was another reason that made Rockwell Automation stand out as the most appropriate choice for this project.
Integrated control and safety
Key to the success of the project was the requirement for a completely integrated solution that would provide effective safety, drive and process control for the press.
“GuardLogix® safety controllers met all the safety and control requirements for the press. The control and drive system was configured so that some particular safety guards could not be opened until the press reached a slow speed, while opening a unit guard at the inappropriate time would stop the press to help prevent injuries,” explained Peter Tomazic, senior solutions consultant at Rockwell Automation.
DeviceNet™ provided communications between the Safety IO and GuardLogix to deliver integrated safety, drive and process control. Four PowerFlex® DC drives were used to power the press which were linked back to the control system using ControlNet™ communications. There were also more than 110 Sipha™ Sensors that were put on the guards throughout the press.
For fast troubleshooting, the PanelView™ graphic terminals display (see below) the status of the guards, showing which guards are open and which ones are closed. “If an adjustment has been made to a part of the press and the guard is left open, we can see from the console exactly which guard was left open. We can then go directly to close that guard so the press can continue to operate as usual,” explained Hedges.
“Another feature of the solution is the ability to integrate additional guarding among the machinery. When we decided to add some doors in front of the reel stands to protect the printers from moving rollers, we were able to loop this additional guarding into the existing program really easily which was very beneficial for us,” he said.
Safe guarded record
The press contains six print towers, six reel stands with two folders that create the end newspapers. This print line can either be run as two independent presses (each containing three print towers with a folder) or they can be run as one press.
“To allow for this we introduced zoning into the safety system so that when used as one press, all of the press’s safe stops are active but if they are run as two separate presses the safe stop of one press does not control the other. There is also an emergency stop which can stop everything if required,” said Tomazic.
In the design of the safety system, there was no stone left unturned which is why there is not one moving part that anyone can get hold of without having to take a guard off. There are over 150 guards just on the press alone, to keep fingers out and avoid serious injuries.
“Sometimes guarding can be cumbersome and cause issues with maintenance and production but with this solution there has been no hold up in production or maintenance schedules and it provides the safety and work environment for staff that we were wanting to achieve,” said Hedges.
“In addition, we have found the working components offer great reliability and on top of that, we have implemented a monthly check list to make sure all the guards are working correctly and operating correctly. Every month we physically disconnect and open the guards on all our guard switches,” he said.
Since the installation of the press there have been no failures on the guard switches and there have been no injuries or near misses thanks to the high level guarding at the press. This is reflected in the press’s safety record, which is the best in the group.
“We’re now up to 2369 days without lost-time injury so we know that our staff will be able to go home at the end of the day in the same way they came to work each and every day,” said Hedges.
Fairfax Media Print Distribution’s original printing press in Tamworth was installed in 1997 and constructed from second-hand equipment from various sites around Australia.