Upgrading a Downsizing Industry

By: Jim Rosenberg It's only reasonable that an industry asking fewer people to work smarter and harder should expect the same of the tools it gives them to accomplish the task.

Upgrades, including add-ons, ordinarily cost far less than new capital equipment, can boost efficiencies and even afford new-revenue opportunities. Typically, when the Gannett Co. considers upgrades, it looks for revenue return on investment, "but not as strongly" as expense reduction, says J. Austin Ryan, the company's U.S. Community Publishing production vice president.

Enhancement of what's already installed may wring out efficiencies or opportunities, but it won't always allow further cuts to already depleted staffs.

Management and staff can do only so much, says Janet Owen, production manager at The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore. "If you're going after the labor," she says, eventually "you come to a breaking point ... and you're going to have to get new technology." New-revenue opportunities, she adds, can be limited by newspaper-specific equipment, and upgrade benefits vary by department.

Mailrooms, for instance, remain labor intensive. As part of a larger post-press systems upgrade, the Register-Guard has new Harland Simon controls on its old inserters. But any effect on staffing, Owen cautions, may only be seen in comparison with the old controls' maintenance needs. As for actual inserting, preprints still need to be fed into machines, although multiple-head arrangements can help. For onserting, she notes, one person can feed many heads if preprints are in good shape.

With so much labor-saving technology deployed in recent decades, Owen recognizes that "there's some diminishing returns after a while." Nevertheless, for those who can justify the expense, she thinks "there's more to be had on the back end ? on the mailroom side." Citing experience with new Ferag equipment at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Owen notes that "if you're running 28,000 [per hour] and you're netting 26,000, you're going to be cutting shifts."

Familiar pressroom enhancements and additions range from new controls and presetting systems to digital inkers, spray dampeners, blanket, web and roller cleaners, and inline stitcher-trimmers or gluers. The Ocala, Fla., Star-Banner saw improvement when it replaced spiral brush dampeners with the same 10-nozzle spray-bars The Gainesville Sun adopted, according to New York Times Regional Media Group Operations Vice President Bob Urillo. So did the group's Spartanburg (S.C.) Herald-Journal's smaller press, which now prints three dailies, when it moved from four- to eight-nozzle bars. All the papers also converted to Goss digital inkers.

Gannett is "looking at three-around technology on presses for expense savings as well as revenue" from added color positions, says Ryan, referring to conversions permitting two-around presses to print three shorter pages around a plate cylinder. And where it offers product enhancement and savings, he adds, "we've looked at color register systems at a number of our sites."

To support new products, ultraviolet ink-curing units cost less and occupy less space than heatset dryers while enabling presses to surpass ordinary coldset printing on paper superior to newsprint.

The Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News has run UV ink on one tower for five years. Along with its stitch and trim capability, the 32,000-circulation daily can produce coupon books, its own and sister papers' special products, the cover of another publisher's magazine, and auto dealer ad inserts.

Page and/or color capacity can be boosted by modifying and stacking floor units, putting a new tower on an old press line, or adding comparable pass-along equipment ? like Goss Colorliner equipment from The New York Times' former Edison, N.J., plant that's now in the busy pressroom of The Ledger, Lakeland, Fla. When maintained as well as Edison's presses, Lakeland-based Urillo says, such "repurposed" equipment costs "pennies on the dollar" compared with the cost of new equipment.

Among other things, Lakeland can now print the 2008-acquired Winter Haven News Chief and add color to what had been day-side printing at the group's Sarasota Herald-Tribune ? which had upgraded its own press with new controls and autoregistration, eliminating four night-shift operators, improving quality, and delivering "a very healthy ROI," says Urillo. Lower cost and higher quality were big factors in sealing the deal to print The Bradenton Herald," he adds.

Other efficiencies aiding Sarasota's arrangement with the nearby McClatchy daily: upgrade to Aragon System Products controls and Kanasa Twister multifeeders for the old inserters, increasing the number of pieces per pass and thereby reducing the number of runs required. Similar improvements supported consolidation of the Gainesville and Ocala post-press operations at the latter's mailrooms.

Prepress can upgrade from film imagesetters to platesetters, reducing materials costs, effluent and labor, while speeding platemaking and improving print quality.

Wherever a material-savings ROI can be identified, "we're absolutely going to look at that," says Ryan. Most Gannett sites now run CTP, and with production consolidation, says Ryan, "we will be cascading some of that equipment into sites that don't have it."

At the Times regional group, "we got a jump on some of that stuff" three years ago, Urillo recalls, noting that the move to CTP at many sites coincided with upgrades to Presteligence NewsXtreme workflow software and elimination of some manual tasks.

Papers already converted to CTP can add efficiency with autoloading, software-driven plate sortation, even retrofittable plate-mounting robots for some presses, and opportunity, with commercial-resolution line-screens and high-end register systems.

Farther upstream, Gannett and the Times regional group use Agfa IntelliTune automatic image-toning software at sites that handle their own papers' work and offer the service to others.

While "committed to our digital future," Ryan says, Gannett recognizes that print remains the important revenue base.