New Ifra service for Indian newspaper industry

"The industry has long called for an independent and professional laboratory where all newspapers can test their printing materials and this Ifra-RIND centre will answer this need. It will be a one-stop centre for newsprint and newsink testing needs," explains Reiner Mittelbach, CEO of Ifra, who inaugurated the facility on 22 January 2007.

Testing services

Initially, the following testing services are being offered by the centre:

• Paper grammage; colour of paper substrate; fineness of ink grind;
  
• Printability tests: ink mileage and consumption, print through, set-off, picking, linting, printing penetration, mottle;
  
• Optical characteristics: density, tone value increase (dot gain), mid-tone spread, colours, printable colour gamut; screening: screen ruling, screen angles, dot shape.

These tests play a vital role in the quality of the printed paper and, if properly controlled, can result in savings for newspapers.

The centre has the following testing equipment: Precision Balance from Switzerland, Printability Tester from The Netherlands, Spectrophotometer from the USA and Grindometer from Germany.

Other equipment that is planned to be added later will include: a special spectrometer for paper, tensile tester, digital mi-crometer, roughness tester, tear tester, rheometer, tackmeter, abrasion tester and ash content meter for testing Newsshade, tensile strength, sheet thickness, surface roughness, tearing strength, viscosity, ink tack, rub-off and ash content.

The centre is also supported by major Indian newspaper publishers such as ABP, Deccan Herald, Dinamalar, Malayala Mano-rama, Manipal Media Network, Mathrubhumi and The Hindu. Two inks suppliers - DIC Inks and Micro Inks - complete the list of the centre's initial supporters.

Improve overall quality

In the future, the centre plans to conduct research to improve the overall quality of newspaper printing. It will undertake studies on standardising newspaper consumables, as well as trends in Indian newspaper printing. These activities will not be restricted only to newspapers, but will also cover magazine printing and other newspaper-related printing areas on request.

As such, the services will be open to any newspaper, magazine or commercial printers offering printing services to the publishing industry. Ultimately, the centre will be a "Regional Quality Competence Centre" for testing newspaper printing materials in the entire South Asian region.