French Regional Newspaper Printer Orders Wifag Evolution 371

By: E&P Staff La Voix du Nord, Lille, France, published by Belgium's Rossel group, is investing in new production equipment to print quality four-color throughout. The large paper's plant, which also prints several other regional newspapers, the free newspaper Lille Plus and various weeklies, has ordered four Wifag evolution 371 offset presses with the latest level of press controls and automation.

The presses are mainly configured for collect production, with the possibility of printing large runs in straight production. The compact and very flexible configuration (eight four-high towers and four KF 140 folders in line, and eight autopaster A50 reelstands) is well adapted to the La Voix du Nord product structure, reducing the production costs with fewer plates, less paper waste, and shorter makeready times.

The presses will be installed in the existing Lille facility and are to begin printing up to 44,000 copies per hour, collect, or 88,000 in straight production at the end of 2008. Up to 64 four-color tabloid pages can be produced at the same time on the four sections or, among other possibilities, up to 192 pages into one folder.

A new system to automatically change plates will reduce down time and boost print productivity, an advantage that allows La Voix du Nord to reorganize editions to further improve Nord - Pas de Calais regional coverage.