A system and method are provided for controlling a printing press including a plurality of print units and, optionally, a folder. Each print unit has one or more cylinders, a motor for driving the cylinders; an encoder for providing a cylinder position signal, a controller coupled to the encoder, the motor, a bus which interconnects each of the controllers and an input port for designating the controller as either master or slave. Any one of the controllers is selectively set as a master controller and the remaining controllers are set as slave controllers. The master controller generates a control signal based on a signal from the input port and outputs the control signal to the motor via the output port and to the slave controllers via the bus. Each of the slave controllers outputs a signal on the respective output port based on the received control signal.