Your modified the plate cylinders of your presses to print 3 pages instead of 2 with every revolution. With the same press speed (revolutions per hour) you can produce much more efficiently now. How do you use this productivity gain?
JOE GALLO: We utilize it in two ways:
a) We moved our deadlines to allow for the faster printing. Both our Editorial and Circulation departments have all new deadlines.
b) We are able to partner with the Cincinnati Enquirer to print their paper. The drive time, about 1.5 hours,  is almost fully made up by the faster print speeds.

Did you already start printing the Cincinnati Enquirer or when will this happen? And will the Kentucky Enquirer follow suit?
We will bring in the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Kentucky Enquirer (their edition for Kentucky) in March.

Are you looking for more contract printing orders? Do you have the capacity to take more orders?
Moving forward we will continue to review opportunities to utilize our equipment for other products in a larger geographic radius from our production facility.

What does the new format mean for the structure of the newspaper, its sections, page count etc.?
We approached the newspaper as an all new product. Our editorial team realized this was much more than just a standard cutdown. It was a chance to reinvent our product. We added  back our business section and added a new Nation &  World section. In addition, they created new topic pages within the section to highlight specific content. As an example, within Sports we now have a College Football section.

How have advertisers responded to the format change?
We converted to modular advertisement sizes before converting the newspaper. We also did an ad impact study that showed ads have a bigger impact on readers. The smaller page makes the ads display more prominently and with fewer items on each page the recall is higher. We are receiving positive feedback from our advertisers.

What gave the impetus for this project and when did it start?
The project actually started back in 2010 as part of a review of how we utilize our production facility. As part of that process we engaged Gannett and Dario Designs [editor’s remark: a consulting company] to determine the feasibility of partnering. (Gannett has many daily newspapers and is constantly looking how to work more efficiently and consolidate… The facility in Cincinnaty had old equipment that either had to be replaced or upgraded – so this was a good option for them.) The analysis revealed the potential of achieving consolidation by taking advantage of the 3v speeds. The conversion project commenced in September of 2011. We launched the Dispatch on January 28, 2013.

What parts of your production equipment had to be replaced (by new components) and what parts needed to be modified or adapted (from production planning to mailroom)? And what companies were involved?
It was a complete re-make from end to end. We had to bring in new platesetters (Krause), plate benders and stackers (Nela), new folders (Foldex) and new stackers (Quipp). The plate cylinders had to be refurbished with filler bars and lock-ups (engineered by Nela) and the palletizers (Schur) had to be modified as well.

3V is the name of Pressline’s technology. What role did Pressline play in this project?
Pressline was the general contractor. They did the modifications, installed filler bars and press locks and did all the refurbishing.

How did you manage to print the newspaper during the conversion works?
We are fortunate to have a facility with four presses each having two folders. We retrofitted the required cylinders for 3v and replaced only one folder on each press. We utilized the other 3 presses while one press would be worked on. We first converted the cylinders and lockups on each press. After confirming the presses reproduced on the single plate, we then installed the new folders one press at a time.

What was the biggest challenge?
Many. This is a very large project. An analogy I utilize is we had to utilize our car for getting to work everyday while also completely changing the engine and transmission.  The internal business change – ad sizes, sales process, editorial process, etc. was larger than the Production project. The biggest challenge on the equipment was being first in the world without having any benchmarks or experience and also recognizing this was the first time a non-TKS part was put on a TKS press. There were specifics to our press that the basic folder had to be adjusted to for a smooth operation.

What are the major benefits of this conversion a) from the production side and b) from the business side?
The major benefit is the outstanding product for our customer. We are receiving outstanding feedback from our readers. It is a very positive reader experience. As a result, we are seeing early indications that subscriptions and single copy sales are increasing.

You received a lot of attention and interest from other newspapers, I suppose?
Yes, we hosted a group of newspapers from the US this week and have scheduled another one for March.

They are mostly interested in the technical aspects of the conversion?
Yes, they want to understand how it works but they are also interested in the advertising aspects, the ad sizes and all this. And they also want to know if readers would accept it. For us this was a very, very good success. We have statistics that say we were 10% up in the first week and 15% in the second week in distribution (sales and subscription). Biggest number was in voluntary starts: 142% up in week one and 60% in week two. To those people we haven’t reached out to, they just picked up the phone saying: I want your product!

After two weeks, is everything running smoothly?
The equipment is performing very well. We still have some inconsistencies getting the product out timely every single day for distribution which is natural …

Did you consider buying a new press to reduce the format of the Columbus Dispatch or was this not an option? Could you give us a rough idea of the cost/financial magnitude of the conversion project?
We did not consider buying a new press. Regarding the investment we do not release the actual figure. What I can say is that originally, without the delay, the technical part of the conversion would have had a ROI of less than two years.