Jysk Fynske Medier is the number two Danish media group, created in 2014 through the merger of three media companies: Jyske Media, Fynske Media and South Danish Media. Since then it has been supplying a full spectrum of media to around one third of Danish households. Jysk Fynske Medier (based in Vejle) operates three newspaper printing plants under its Jysk Fynske Mediers Trykkerier flag – in Odense on the island of Funen, in Kolding on the east coast of Jutland and in Struer on the west coast. Between them, they produce a total of 13 daily newspaper titles and 55 weeklies.
Four dailies with print runs of up to 40,000 copies each are among the items produced by a workforce of 40 or so at the Kolding plant. Numerous weekly titles are another focus of work there that continues around the clock, every day of the year. The newspapers concerned are mostly tabloids with 32 or more pages.
With Denmark’s printing industry in a state of flux, it is difficult to predict how print media will develop. Retrofit measures usually enable printing plant operators to gain a few years of leeway for restructuring their capacities. Against this background, Jysk Fynske Medier decided to join the trend by automating one of two inserting lines in Kolding and carrying out a retrofit.
Kolding operates two Ferag inserting lines, one of which is mainly used as a backup. All of this mailroom technology was installed in the late 1980s and has been operating reliably ever since. The inserting lines have been hand-fed to date, but the wage structure in Denmark has changed meanwhile, greatly increasing the expense of manual labour. Moreover, there is a dwindling number of personnel available on a flexible basis, which is a prerequisite for deploying auxiliary staff because inserts are a highly volatile business in Denmark.
Jesper Thomsen is the production engineering manager for all three printing sites. Together with Ferag, his team designed an automation solution compatible with the technology in place, which is several decades old. There are employees familiar with the original installation on both the customer and Ferag sides. As recommended by Ferag, Jysk Fynske Medier first performed an overall analysis of the system. On this basis, the wearing parts were replaced in advance of the retrofit.
Ferag then tracked down pre-owned MultiDisc components to suit the customer – one winding station and two unwinding stations – which were factory overhauled and generally refurbished. These allow Jysk Fynske Medier to feed preprinted products and inserts automatically and at higher speeds from the reel to the ETR inserting drum.
Thus, the solution in Kolding makes a very good example of how Ferag ensures backward compatibility despite all the innovations of recent decades. It demonstrates too that Ferag technology is also about long-term investment security. The MultiDisc system was installed in January 2018 and linked up without any interference to ongoing production. Now Kolding is capable of processing three inserts, two of them without manual intervention. According to Jesper Thomsen, the inserting solution works very reliably and fully meets the expectations of Jysk Fynske Medier.
About Ferag AG:
Ferag AG, with its headquarters at Hinwil in Switzerland, has for 60 years been known and respected in the printing industry for high quality, absolute dependability and perfect customer support. The traditional, family-owned company is seen as the undisputed market and technological leader in the development, manufacture and marketing of postpress processing systems. Ferag is also a specialist in innovative conveyor and processing technology for the most varied industrial applications and goods distribution systems. For example, with its innovative Skyfall system, the company has in recent years become very successful in sectors like e-commerce and intralogistic materials flow. Like its affiliate companies Denipro AG, WRH Global AG with its 20 subsidiaries, and PMC Print Media Corporation, Ferag is part of the Walter Reist Holding AG corporate group, which employs a staff of more than 800 worldwide.
(http://www.ferag.com [1])
