Specifically in the mailroom, a 36-hour race is on to process and deliver this Axel Springer paper that includes 250 milllion inserts per year (40 percent of the plant’s total inserting volume) and 33 local editions, says Frank Wagner, Head of Postpress Production, Druckhaus Spandau, Axel Springer AG.

The company also handles the production of eight daily newspapers (both Axel Springer and external daily titles) with a print run of about 1 million copies, plus the Berliner Morgenpost EXTRA weekend edition (1.34 million copies), as well as some commercial printing jobs.

Berliner Woche was relaunched with a new Nordic tabloid format, and this along with the inserting volume brought even more challenges to the table. Fortunately, the company’s printing capacity, staff training, and synergies with other weekly newspaper production meant that they were on a solid foundation.

But the company knew it had to invest in additional equipment. Fortunately, prices were favourable at that time (autumn 2010) and Spandau opted to purchase two identically configured high-speed ProLiner inserting machines from Müller Martini (the daily and five Sunday newspapers are produced on nine NewsLiner inserting machines with a maximum of six feeders).

Each of the 12-station ProLiners is equipped with a CoLiner pre-gathering unit with six stations, giving each inserting line a total of 18 insert feeders. Both newspaper inserting systems comprise three new CombiStack package creators with a built-in supply for bottom sheets on which the sales information (route number, bundle number and insert identification) is printed using an inkjet printer.

The production strategy for BW leans on five key elements for success, says Mr. Wagner: optimised machine scheduling; the performance of the two high-speed Proliners (43,000 copies per hour); staff changes without interruption; job changes without interruption; and just-in-time logistics.

After the first eight weeks of production of the weekly, the results are encouraging, says Mr. Wagner.

• Volume of inserts: ranged from 3.3 million to 8.2 million. Spandau is expecting to reach 12-14 million in the future.
• Punctuality: after an initial 6.7-hour delay in the first week, there has only been one other delay.
• Performance: with a goal of producing 43,000-46,000 copies per hour, the plant exceeded 43,000 cph four times and fell below 40,000 just twice. And to beat that deadline window of 36 hours, the company has exceeded the mark only three times.

“Of course we had some teething problems from the outset, dealing with such a high volume and new equipment, but we are working hard to improve every day,” says Mr. Wagner.