Finishing & Screen Printing

Tighter Deadlines Demand More Flexible Solutions

Thursday 25. February 2010 - Increased In-Line Production at Swiss Printers Ringier Print in Zofingen (Switzerland)

Zofingen-based Swiss Printers Ringier Print is increasingly turning to in-line production thanks to the new press delivery systems from Muller Martini, which feature the first Preciso DS double stream rotary trimmer in Switzerland.

“Customers are demanding increasingly tight deadlines,” explains Technical Director Roger Bourquin. “That’s why we opted for both an in-line and off-line solution for our press delivery system.” Of course, another reason for the choice was the fact that Ringier Print Zofingen has also relied on the Muller Martini PrintRoll system for a number of years. This rolls up the signatures before they are fed to the six saddle stitchers and the Muller Martini Corona perfect binder via the log stacker.

It is important to realize that this company – part of the Swiss Printers Group, which also includes media firms NZZ and Edipresse – was once primarily a magazine printing house for Ringier’s own publications, led by the flagship publications “Schweizer Illustrierte” (circulation: 210,000 copies), “Glückspost” (140,000), “Betty Bossi” (850,000), “Illustré” (91,000), “TV8” (83,000) and “L`Hebdo” (44,000). However, the last ten years have seen the proportion of commercial work increase considerably, and the firm now produces press-finished products, including large numbers of newspaper inserts, within virtually the same time restraints as the newspapers themselves.

Swiss Printers Ringier Print is now producing more and more press-finished products. Its four commercial web offset printing machines process 250 metric tonnes of paper every day, and are capable of printing and in-line gluing up to 200,000 gathered copies per hour.





Preciso DS: The Quiet Space-Saver

In order to speed up the production process for the 500 million or so copies cut every year, Ringier Print Zofingen decided to complement its existing Exacto rotary trimmer with the new Preciso DS double stream rotary trimmer from Muller Martini, which it was the first Swiss company to acquire. The compact Preciso DS combines two rotary trimmers, which is a great advantage when it comes to saving space in the eyes of Print Team Leader and Project Manager Eric Wittmann. He believes that the new Preciso DS is also capable of “highly accurate cuts – something that is crucial to our customers. Thanks to its high level of automation, the Preciso DS is extremely quick to change over; this has paved the way for us to produce a diverse range of products. Last but not least, the cutting mechanism is very quiet.”

The double stream rotary trimmer can be used in-line with either one printing press with two deliveries or with two printing presses with one folder delivery each. This allows two shingle streams to be processed independently of one another. For Swiss Printers Ringier Print, this means that the Preciso DS is fed either by two deliveries from one KBA Compacta or by one delivery from each of two KBA Compactas – whatever the order and no matter what the speed. This means that the printing house can be much more flexible in its in-line production.

Another First for Switzerland

In addition to the Preciso DS and the two Listo stackers coming into play after the rotary trimmer, Swiss Printers Ringier Print invested in a third Muller Martini press delivery solution – the Apila automatic palletizing system. The robot is kitted out with a double gripper and can process two stacks at the same time. At the site in Zofingen, it uses a fully automated process to palletize the printed products that have been fed from the Rotoman printing press and processed into stacks by a Forte stacker – another first for Switzerland.

“I saw the Apila at the drupa ’08 and realized that Muller Martini was breaking new ground in the field of palletizing,” says Roger Bourquin. “The success of a long-standing partnership and added benefits to both parties are what continue to encourage both our company and Muller Martini to make further technical developments. Plus, we have a press delivery system from a single source,” concludes Eric Wittmann.