Mailroom Managers Share Strategies
A packed house of around 120 attended a Wednesday morning idea exchange on packaging and distribution. Jack H. Stanley, senior vice president of operations and technology at the Houston Chronicle and chairman of NAA's Packaging and Distribution Committee, was not surprised by the crowded room.
"Inserting is a bottom-line issue," he said. "The best week a newspaper can have is heavy inserts with a big employment section."
Robin Shank, director of print quality for the Los Angeles Times and a workshop organizer, offered another view.
"The people who run presses have user groups, and they call one another to discuss problems. The post-press people don't have as many avenues for that kind of discussion. "
The audience sat at 10 round tables. After spending a few minutes on assigned topics, each table's attendees shared what they discussed with the entire group.
They found that publishers of every size have trouble dealing with large Sunday papers. Machines are pushed to the limit by a river of preprints. Carriers complain that some editions are just too large to be delivered efficiently.
Mailroom managers also must deal with an increasingly diverse array of samples for items from shampoo to potato chips. In some areas, carriers insert samples by hand because available equipment won't handle them efficiently.
"Our carriers tell us, 'If you get the parts to me early enough, I can put it all together,'" said Doyle Evans, production and distribution director for the Houston Chronicle. "They would rather do it that way than wait on the machines."
Executives at several papers bring commercial printers who produce and deliver inserts into their plants to see demonstrations of newspaper equipment. The printers gain a better understanding of the newspaper operation.
At another table, mailroom executives said their publishers give them permission to refuse inserts that "cannibalize the full-run product, must be zoned too finely or are too lightweight."
Jesse Munoz, packaging and distribution manager for the Ventura County Star in Camarillo, Calif., found the session helpful. "I learned a lot," he said, passing along a business card. "It's reassuring to know that other people fight the same problems you do."
Tools Expand Packaging Capacity
From cart-loading systems to new-technology bundlers, NEXPO attendees had lots to see for the once lowly mailroom. Production staffers sought equipment that promises to increase productivity, reduce staffing and help in converting packaging centers into profit centers.
"The newspaper business is ripe for automation in the post-press area," Gammerler President Robert M. Bassett of Hanover Park, Ill., said in an interview on the exhibit floor.
Vendors offered help. Gammerler introduced the PrintPath STC-70, a commercial compensating stacker that drops bundles in three stages. The three-stage drop helps align problematic lightweight materials, as the pieces do not drop as abruptly.
GMA of Bethlehem, Pa., exhibited a bundler still undergoing tests that operates in conjunction with the SLS-2000 inserter. President Randy Seidel explained, "Each copy is controlled as it goes through the several stages between conveyor in-feed and strapped-bundle delivery. Compensating is not required."
Cannon Equipment of Rosemount, Minn., exhibited the NCL II Automatic Cart Loading System. Pat Geraghty, national sales manager, said the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News uses some 1,200 carts to convey bundles, in order, to the loading dock and to await truck drivers.
Plumtree Co. of Savannah, Ga., introduced the QTMS Copycounter III, which uses infrared technology to count papers via conveyor and in most stackers, and can be used with a totalizing system.
Heidelberg's shaftless NP1280 allows users to stop and start up to 80 hoppers to build zoned insert packages.
Quipp Systems Inc. of Miami offered an automatic palletizer that produces completely wrapped pallet loads.
Bishamon Industries Corp. of Ontario, Calif., exhibited the EZ Loader, an ergonomic pallet lift designed to save the backs of workers on insert lines.
Dollar Coin Spurs Rack Updates
As the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing prepares to release a $1 coin, expected in first-quarter 2000, newsrack manufacturers are altering their machines to handle the coins.
The coin will be gold in color and have a different edge than the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin currently in circulation. Once the supply of Anthony coins is exhausted, the bureau will release the new coin.
It depicts Sacagawea, the 15-year-old Shoshone interpreter who, from 1804 to 1806, accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean and back.
Bill Hemingway, president of Bellatrix Systems Inc., says the company's Coin Wizard line will be programmed to take the new coins. The mechanisms use optical readers to sense coin size and configuration.
"We hope the new coin takes off because it would be great for Sunday newspapers," Hemingway said. "Not everyone walks around with seven quarters in their pockets."
Kaspar Sho-Rack's Software Sales Consultant Lester Mitchell said that his company also is preparing to deal with Sacagawea. Early in 2000, its mechanisms will recognize up to 20 different coins, including Canadian ones, through a system that detects their metal alloys.
"As soon as we get the information about the [dimensions of the] new coin, we will program the mechanisms," Mitchell said. Circulators also will be able to purchase software and program the mechanisms themselves.
Kaspar's TK Electronic coin mechanism can be programmed to accept so-called "smart cards" for payment. The cards store everything from health data to credit and debit information and could be used like cash to purchase newspapers.