Technical manager Andreas Kunzemann says the mailroom become “more and more of a bottleneck” after the installation of the second of two new KBA Commander CT presses in a three-phase update between 2006 and 2010.

The print centre produces all the local editions of Main-Post (circulation almost 140,000 copies on Saturdays) and a further 50,000 copies of other regional newspapers.

Mailroom supplier Ferag says the management team had originally wanted a retrofit project but were shown that a full replacement of two lines would be more economical, leading to a change of system supplier. An existing line has been retained to absorb production peaks.

With two-up production on three presses, each line achieves a maximum printing speed of 94,000 cph. This is handled by UTR Universal conveyors

taking two products per gripper in 2:1 mode. “Thanks to reliable product take-up in this mode, we have been able to increase our net output by 30 per cent,” says Kunzemann.