DZZ Druckzentrum Zürich AG is part of Tamedia AG and Switzerland’s largest production site for daily newspapers. The Tages-Anzeiger and Neue Zürcher Zeitung, for example, roll off its triple-width presses. Among the recently acquired printing jobs are around 160,000 copies of the Blick tabloid as well as the Luzerner Zeitung published by CH Media. The latter features five regional editions produced on six weekdays with print runs of close to 118,000 copies a time.

The Ferag postpress processing machinery installed at Ringier Print Adligenswil (RPA) dated from 2008, yet it was already up-to-date with regard to machine control. That gave sufficient grounds for Druckzentrum Zürich to acquire three of the five mailroom lines from Adligenswil: its own production machinery would then be in shape to handle increased capacity requirements, as well as having the modern technical prerequisites for coming years.

More efficient mailroom lines
Between August and late November 2018 major parts of those mailroom lines were dismantled in Adligenswil and brought by Ferag to their new operating location: insert collection components (RollStream with JetFeeder), parts of the winding machinery, and most importantly, the bundling and addressing machinery.

Stefan Abbt, Deputy CEO and Head of Newspaper Production at DZZ: “Essentially, the aim was to take everything from those three acquired lines which would update our machinery on the two processing lines for Blick and Luzerner Zeitung and make them more efficient, and integrate that into our system.” So now, rather than six inserts, eight can be collected and inserted – three in automated fashion from MultiDisc unwinding stations and five via a RollStream. A total of eight MultiStack compensating stackers and addressing machinery were also added.

An additional unwinding station has created a special feature: DZZ can run three production modes at once. Thus, newspaper copies both with inserts and without (in a separate chain) can be addressed and, together with other newspapers, transferred directly from the press to a common line with five MultiStack compensating stackers.

DZZ has not swapped out its MSD inserting drums which, in contrast to the machinery at RPA, can process insert products weighing up to 1 kg. Accordingly, this MSD inserting drum was upgraded with the latest control technology – for years, DZZ has been accustomed to mixing and matching different generations of machinery with support from Ferag.

Production gaps used for conversion
With Druckzentrum Zürich and Ferag having determined this optimum combination of mailroom machinery based on DZZ’s existing modules and the machinery just acquired from RPA, the project then got under way. The move to Bubenbergstrasse in Zurich took place as a series of phases, in parallel with moving the newspaper titles previously produced in Adligenswil. As soon as production modules were no longer needed and suitable production gaps arose, Ferag brought the equipment to Druckzentrum Zürich. There it was a similar story: the new machinery was linked up without causing any breaks in production. Stefan Abbt: “It was a tight schedule, but everyone involved stuck to it.”

With all editions of Blick coming entirely out of Zurich since 1 November, the night of 30 November 2018 marked the first Luzerner Zeitung print run using the newly organized mailroom lines. It all proceeded without a hitch and to everyone’s satisfaction.

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.
(https://www.ferag.com)