Finishing & Screen Printing

Amedia Trykk og Distribusjon, Stokke: MPC Control System Ensures Everything Runs Smoothly in the Mailroom

Friday 21. June 2013 - Amedia Trykk og Distribusjon, located in Stokke, Norway has updated its aging mailroom by adding a ProLiner machine in addition to other modernization steps. The company's choice once again of Muller Martini for its newspaper inserting system, bundling station and ramp system is closely related to the Mailroom Production Control (MPC) system.

Amedia Trykk og Distribusjon, founded last August as a joint venture of several different companies, has nine printing plants, the largest of which is located in Stokke and has 92 employees, where nine daily newspapers and 24 other papers with varying publication frequencies are printed in tabloid format using two printing presses, each with two folder deliveries, and finished in its mailroom on-site. Approximately 180,000 inserts, consisting of advertising material, semi-advertising material and editorial preprinted sections, are inserted every week. “In Norway, many households have a ‘No Advertising’ sticker on their mailboxes,” says Svein B. Sæbøe, Project & Strategy Manager at Amedia in Stokke. “That’s why newspaper inserts have become more popular in recent years.”
Production in Stokke of both the company’s own titles and newspapers for other publishers runs six days a week (only Saturdays are off due to a lack of Sunday papers), 20 hours a day. During the day, the non-daily newspapers with print runs ranging between 2,200 and 42,000 copies are printed, while 20 percent of production is dedicated to inserts. These are rolled up on FlexiRoll buffers just like the advertising inserts delivered on pallets. The time slot from 6.30 p.m. to 3 a.m. is dedicated to daily newspaper production for various publishers with print runs ranging between 5,000 and 40,000 copies; these papers are dispatched from Stokke to readers in the southern and eastern parts of Norway.
MPC Tipped the Scales
“Due to our complex job structure – each day is different from the next – we depend on seamless production processes for printing and inserting,” emphasizes Sæbøe. “That’s why we chose a solution from Muller Martini when we opened our mailroom in 1998. Having the buffer system to separate printing from finishing provides us with a high degree of flexibility and reliability for production at night. It enables us to deliver 99.6 % of all newspapers in the designated time slot before 7 a.m.”
As the company’s machinery had started to age, Amedia decided to renew its systems step by step. “We’ve maintained good relations with Muller Martini over the years, always finding the right solution,” says Sæbøe. “However, we still performed an extensive evaluation and examined three different manufacturers.” According to the Project & Strategy Manager, there was one main reason for the company opting for a Muller Martini solution again this time: “During a presentation at Muller Martini’s headquarters in Zofingen, Switzerland, we were particularly impressed by the Mailroom Production Control (MPC) system, as Muller Martini has made great progress compared to the predecessor control systems.”
Inkjet System in Chain
The simple, clear and flexible control system that enables processes in the mailroom to be fully controlled and monitored and presents a target/actual analysis of the production process as both a table and a graph, is especially important for Amedia for one particular reason: MPC also controls the inkjet system as part of the production chain that Muller Martini has installed in Stokke for the first time ever. This customized solution not only speeds up the production process but also brings great advantages with regard to maintenance of the centralized inkjet heads.
That is not the only special solution. As is the case for many newspaper publishers in the large, yet sparsely populated Scandinavian countries, Amedia produces a large number of small key bundles down to one copy. It therefore uses a BS 21 small bundling station that was specially designed by Muller Martini for such ultra-small jobs. This solution also removes traffic from the ramp, as the postal routes are saved in MPC and the bundles are placed in the delivery trucks according to each route via the NewsSorter bundle conveyor (see box).
ProLiner Featuring Promo Feeder
In addition to two NewsLiner machines that have been in operation for several years, a new ProLiner inserting machine from Muller Martini ensures that each newspaper leaves the plant with the correct inserts. In addition to four feeders for traditional inserts such as pre-printed sections and commercial work, the ProLiner, which has replaced the company’s oldest NewsLiner, features a promo feeder that can also process CDs, DVDs and coupon booklets in A6 format.
Amedia invested in a new ProLiner due to an increase in its number of inserts. That decision has paid off for two reasons, according to Sæbøe: “First, the ProLiner ensures stable production even at high production speeds. Second, we can now insert even heavier inserts with ease.”