Abril Grafica, located in Sao Paulo, Brazil, now has an AVT MicroColor remote ink control system and four ColorQuick closed-loop color control systems installed on their publication and commercial web offset presses.
MicroColor/Mercury is the next generation of remote ink control and updates. It offers proven digital accuracy, consistent color quality and dramatic make-ready time savings, and delivers considerable waste reductions. MicroColor has a new fully touch-screen control and a more efficient graphical user interface. In addition, the installed systems are now updated to the newest ColorQuick/Clarios modules. This newest spectral color control tool provides several new views of print conditions that help printers react more quickly and correctly to print conditions as they arise on high-speed web offset presses. It also provides web offset printers with an automated solution for closed-loop color measurement and control. The system makes fast, automatic color moves during make-ready and maintains tight control on color consistency during production.
Marcelo Tobo, Printing Manager at Abril Grafica in charge of the 24/7, three-shift printing department, commented: "Abril Grafica believes in AVT and their products and we are pleased that they are working well. This advanced automation allows our presses to work at faster speeds and offers us the ability to take advantage of more opportunities." Mr. Tobo will be travelling to Drupa in Germany next year to continue his search for printing solutions.
Amir Deckel, Vice President of Marketing for AVT, stated: "Publication and commercial printers like Abril Grafica now have AVT systems that provide them with new levels of process control and automation solutions that drive production excellence. These systems also help printers cope with today's pressroom challenges that include both tough economic conditions – with the rising costs of paper, ink and plates – and more demanding customers and end-users. These new generation systems allow shorter turn around, faster press speeds, faster overall operation, and dramatically increased ease-of-use. These added-value solutions and their resultant quality and efficiency increases, together with cost savings, achieve 30-50% faster make-readies and 10% waste reductions. The combination forms the strong foundation for optimum web offset printing."
Abril Grafica is considered the largest printer in Latin America by production volume. With more than 1000 employees, they produce over 500 million copies of magazines, supplements, special editions and catalogs each year. Besides printing the vast majority of Brazilian magazines, Abril Grafica also produces books and tabloids for renowned companies. When founded in 1950, the single magazine published and printed was Donald Duck. In addition to their impressive bank of high-speed web offset presses, they are the only printer in Latin America to also employ the rotogravure process for printing long-run publications.
Abril Grafica is a business unit of the family-owned Grupo Abril, one of Latin America's largest and most influential media conglomerates. A total of 7400 employees are actively engaged in magazine and textbook publishing, online content and services, out-of-home services, broadband internet, database marketing, broadcasting and pay TV.
Since many of Abril Grafica's customers are owned by the parent company, their investments in color quality via AVT's solutions are driven by the company's overall commitment to superior quality. Abril Grafica clearly understand the benefits of color control are far reaching, and benefit and satisfy the complete customer chain including publishers, readers and advertisers, as well as the printer's bottom line via make-ready savings and waste reduction.
Abril Grafica is but one of many success stories in Brazil. As the world's fifth largest economy and the world's fifth largest population, they are well positioned for continued growth. As the chosen venue of the 2014 Soccer World Cup and the 2016 location of the 2016 Summer Olympics, Brazil is continuing its winning streak. With 60 years of success since Abril Grafica first showed Donald Duck the way to Brazil, the company will certainly have a prominent part in the excitement to come as well.
