Ferag continues making
mailroom sophisticated worldwide
With installation of new improved version of web presses and increasing importance of automation as well as value creation in newspaper production, the newspaper houses and contract printers have been investing in mailroom technologies significantly. Switzerland-based leading mailroom solutions provider Ferag recently announced several installations across the world, opening up new horizons of success. Here’s brief about some of them.
The RollStream precollecting system is equipped with a total of ten hoppers and caters for the trend towards zoned inserting.
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The Want-Want China Times Media Group is investing in UTR and MultiStack technology with the state-of-the-art Navigator control, which have been ordered for the Taipei and Kaoshiung printing centres. One reason for placing the order was the longstanding positive association with Joinpack, Ferag’s marketing partner in Taiwan. With options like inserting, stitching and trimming, or the MemoStick, MemoCard and MemoFlag advertising formats, the company saw that the Ferag solution would offer them big opportunities for growth and prosperity. These added value functions can be phased into the system environment at relatively low cost.
Imprimerie Saint-Paul, owned by Saint-Paul Luxembourg SA, is expediting its entry into the semi-commercial business. Since August 2011, its own daily and weekly newspapers have been produced on a fold n’ stitch folding and stitching line from Ferag, alongside commercial products. The goal is to boost the value of published and commercial products and generate more business. Locating the quarterfold and stitching process outside of the printing machine means that Imprimerie Saint-Paul SA will become more competitive due to more economical and flexible production. With fold n’stitch, there has already been a shift of products from heatset into coldset. The fold n’ stitch folding and stitching line combines two technologies, developed by Ferag and tried-and-tested over a number of decades, in a single system. The precision fold is assured in paginations ranging from four to 64. The stitching heads originate from rotary gatherer-stitcher technology and can match the toughest demands. By the end of the year, a sheet hopper will be available that, in conjunction with fold n’ stitch, will enable the inline production of high-quality magazines with a heatset cover and coldset contents at speeds up to 40,000 copies per hour.
By investing in Ferag’s MultiStack bundling system, United Arab Emirates-based Dar Al Khaleej Publishing is taking its first step towards automation in the mailroom and is thus set to secure its position in the marketplace. The company is publisher of Dar Al Khaleej, the biggest Arabic daily in the United Arab Emirates, with a circulation of 70,000 copies. They also publish a English daily Gulf Today. The two UTR conveyer systems transport the daily newspapers by the most direct route to one MultiStack bundling machine each for the creation of standard bundles. Finally, the bundles are readied for dispatch on two SmartStrap strapping machines before passing to the loading docks.
Deciding to work with Ferag! From the right: Chen, Printing Department administrator,
China Times; Susanne Rau-Reist, CEO and chairwoman of the Board at WRH Walter
Reist Holding AG; Yu, vice president of Advertisement Department China Times;
Michael Ho, CEO Joinpack (Ferag’s marketing partner in Taiwan).
The EasySert inserting lines ensure efficient finishing with extremely heavy
direct-mail zoning.
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Correio Braziliense, one of Brazil’s leading daily newspapers, has also optimized production in the mailroom with two MultiStack stacking systems and is reaping the benefits of greater process security and improved bundle quality. The daily is printed on a Goss Newsliner press, which continues to do sterling work for the publisher. In the mailroom, however, there was an urgent need to update the aging bundling equipment. Due to the MultiStack bundling system’s innovative and flexible technology platform allowing mixed production of standard bundles and odd counts across all bundling units, Ferag was able to fend off the competition. A further factor in winning the customer over was the compact and robust design of Ferag’s bundling solution. At Correio Braziliense, two MultiStack stackers have been integrated into an existing belt conveyor system. The result is a clear increase in bundle quality – another advantage for the separate newspaper copies as they pass undamaged down the distribution chain.
The Ostsee-Zeitung has upgraded its mailroom with Ferag technology and in so doing has been able to reduce the number of mailroom lines from three down to one. In addition, it has extended its inserting options by installing an MSD2 Compact inserting drum combined with the RollStream precollecting system. The Ostsee-Zeitung is a regional daily newspaper in the northeastern federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The RollStream precollecting system is equipped with a total of ten hoppers and thus caters for the trend towards zoned inserting. The MSD2-C inserting drum inserts products offline into the preprints and the main products at a maximum speed of 40,000 copies an hour. This enables the Ostsee-Zeitung to boost the appeal of its 10 local editions and manage the growing volume of inserts more efficiently. With the new mailroom, the Ostsee-Zeitung also has secured itself options for the production of semi-commercials and can later integrate modules for stitching and trimming, as well as the application of cards, into the mailroom line.
North of London, in Luton, West Ferry Printers is investing GBP 60 million to establish a modern newspaper printing centre, where The Daily Express, Daily Star and Daily Sport newspapers – amongst the highest circulation daily newspapers in the UK – will be printed. Ferag solutions will be used for taking copies off the four presses at a printing speed of 90,000 an hour, as well as for bundling. In the mailroom, Ferag has been a reliable partner to West Ferry Printers for more than 20 years. Here, too, the tried-and-tested TPC forwarding station forms the interface with the mailroom. The TPC gripper, which is considerably wider than conventional grippers, means that heavier and thicker products also reach the MultiStack stacking systems securely and dependably – a task that’s handled by four lines, feeding a total of eight MultiStack units. Next comes topsheet application, before an underwrapper is fed to the separate bundles. Finally, the bundles are strapped using SmartStrap machines. From there, PKT conveyors transport the separate bundles to four Segbert palletizers, which stack them fully automatically for delivery to the distribution centre.
On six days of the week, the Heilbronner Stimme printing operation produces three paid newspapers as well as the Echo freesheet that appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Further weekly, 2-weekly and monthly titles in full and half format round off the production palette. The printing operation also serves the direct-mail market. What previously was carried out on two ETR inserting drums has in the last few months been achieved with a single MultiSertDrum (MSD) series inserting drum. Around 1,00,000 daily newspapers are being processed on this one inserting line. Quite apart from the fact that circulations have increased compared with earlier years, it is mainly net output that is noticeably higher on the MSD line. The generation change is apparent both in shorter production times and also in cost-effective personnel savings. Then there’s the new EasySert inserting line with 14 JetFeeder hoppers. EasySert is used to gather and insert brochures and flyers into a four-page jacket for direct mailing to around 2,30,000 regional households. This market was developed some five years ago. Prior to EasySert, these advertising mailshots were still being put together manually.
Dragging and dropping in the mailroom
Küster-Pressedruck is the world’s first company to install Ferag’s Navigator control. With its innovative user interface, the Navigator makes a huge difference to the ease with which all mailroom processes are prepared and monitored, and at the same time boosts efficiency.
“Due to increasing complexity in the mailroom, we were looking for a solution that would take the subject of control to a new level”, explained Hans-Henning Holdorf, technical manager at Küster-Pressedruck. With the Navigator concept, Ferag was in this respect able to present an innovative approach and persuade Küster-Pressedruck to come on board and get the new control working under real production conditions for the first time. “With the Navigator, Ferag has brought the innovative user guidance that we know from the iPhone or the iPad into the mailroom. The Navigator is the ideal tool for the line supervisor to exploit the mailroom technology’s potential to even greater effect,” he added.
From the technical manager’s standpoint, the Navigator makes for a better overview with more transparency in the mailroom, and the intuitive user guidance makes it easier for staff to master the increasingly complex mailroom processes efficiently. “This kind of user friendliness is really unique for the mailroom. It puts us in a position to keep tabs on everything despite increasingly complex tasking, and also boost productivity,” emphasized Hans-Henning Holdorf.
