Overview

The MPCS press control system was introduced in the mideighties by Goss as their in-house solution for Headliner double-width presses in the North American market. Goss had a large share of the new press business at that time and the MPCS became well established as a result. The presses themselves still have many years of good production left in them before they can be written off. The MPCS, however, has already been left well behind by current control systems technology and many of its users are now worried about it becoming obsolescent.

Reasons to Consider Replacing your MPCS

Replacing your existing MPCS control system with a modern control solution, may be attractive in order to overcome some or all of the following issues:

• Out of date, proprietary DEC hardware
• Support for DEC computers is limited or non-existent
• Advancing obsolescence of the Drive Master plcs
• Proprietary data link protocols
• Unavailability of spare parts
• Slow response to control inputs
• Inaccessible embedded software

Diagnostics and Support

Every Harland Simon control system comes with a sophisticated diagnostics package to help site maintenance staff to resolve problems quickly. If that fails, our 24/7 support team can access the system directly from our offices in order to provide expert assistance for your team.

The Harland Simon Solution – What’s Involved

The Harland Simon solution focuses on removing obsolete and under-performing equipment and replacing it with current technology. The results are improved efficiency and a supportable control platform for the lifetime of the press. Crucially, production can be maintained throughout the replacement.

The diagram below shows a typical MPCS system. For simplicity, we have only shown one example of the drive, folder and units controls.

As an option Harland Simon offers to replace the existing Master Control Console (Folder Console) with a second Harland Simon PRIMA 5000 Control Console. This would
then enable all press and quality functions to be available at both PRIMA 5000 Consoles.

The system performance of the MPCS and the diagnostic facilities available at the printers consoles are limited by the inefficient, slow data link communications and the hard-coded
application software. The solution offered by Harland Simon removes those limitations by providing high-speed, open communications for faster data throughput. The use of an
international standard single board PC, that slots directly into the existing STD rack, provides a means of accessing system parameters to improve the diagnostics available to the press
operator. A simple implementation of the MPCS protocols on modern hardware would not give this advantage.We are also able to extend our solution to include the replacement of the
dated unit racks with modern PLCs.

The installation is implemented in parallel with the existing
system and can be completed within the restricted access periods typically available in the newspaper industry.

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