It was the first of a breakthrough press design in Europe. Now the Goss FPS once proudly installed in Emmeloord, Netherlands is being sold for parts.

In 2008, all eyes were on F.D. Hoekstra Boom’s pioneering installation of Goss’s Flexible Printing System, the second worldwide after Independent News & Media in Newry, Northern Ireland, which was later expanded with two more towers, one of them heatset.

This was the concept of the Preston, UK-built press: To print a variety of heatset and coldset work, newspaper editions as well as 120-page glossy magazines in a single pass, using an innovative press unit that rolled apart for makeready.

In Emmeloord, an 87,000 cph press of two double-width towers and a 2:5:5 modular jaw folder was equipped with stitcher, skip slitter and quarterfold to enable a wide variety of work.

But following the acquisition by Mediahuis and centralisation of production in Leeuwarden, the new owners wanted the site cleared, and purchaser GWS Printing Systems reckoned they could make more money selling it and another Goss press as parts.

GWS – itself now part of German-headquartered press maker manroland Goss web systems – takes up the story: “We successfully cleared out the print plant, leaving the owners with a broom-clean scenario, with our parts division playing a critical role in ensuring the project's success.

“By partnering with us, the owners will still earn revenue, even when we are not successful in selling the equipment as a whole,” commercial director Daniel Constandse said.

The project has been completed in three months, delivering positive revenue for Mediahuis which still earns a return on harvested parts held in stock at GWS.

Launched with the Newry installation, the Colorliner-based FPS was also installed in the US at the independently-owned ‘Free Lance Star’ in Fredericksburg, Virginia, which also had a heatset upgrade.