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After the North Jersey Media Group implemented ppi Media U.S. Inc.’s workflow software at its facility in Hackensack, N.J., in 2002, NJMG liked the app so much it decided to deploy the software at its commercial facility in nearby Rockaway, N.J. That happened earlier this year (see Newspapers & Technology, February 2003).

Now it’s time for some upgrading to maximize the system’s capability in Hackensack, where NJMG publishes The Record of Bergen County, the Herald News, weekly newspapers and a regional edition of Investor’s Business Daily.

To streamline the production of all the titles, NJMG in early 2002 tapped ppi, a division of MAN Roland Inc.

“What we really wanted to do was take as many systems as we could and compress them down to one system,” said Michael Colonna, NJMG’s systems manager.

Only one

Colonna said in the search for workflow software vendors systems, only ppi offered integrated classified pagination and page layout. The apps, AdPag and PlanPag, run in concert with ppi’s production database application, which NJMG already had in place.

“We’re adding page layout and we are also now bringing in ppi’s Slot Machine (software), which is something we helped them develop that will allow us to track individual plates,” Colonna said. “Editorial will be able to tell us what time they’re going to be sending down individual plates, not pages, and this will be tracked in graph form.”

Prior to deploying AdPag, Colonna said it was taking 40 minutes to an hour to “dump” all of the classified liners and advertisements out of NJMG’s legacy Mactive Inc. software.

The problem, he explained, was that although the previous vendors’ systems worked well, the interface between the Mactive software and the ALS layout app from Managing Editor Inc. was “a little weak.”

“We’ve eliminated this with a new interface that will give us a feed for classified pagination and ads every three minutes,” Colonna said. “So we think we’re going to increase our ability to put the paper together and paginate classifieds by at least 50 to 60 percent right off the bat.”

Change automatically

The Slot Machine module, installed in September, will eventually allow changes made in the newsroom to be carried over to prepress automatically.

“Let’s say The Record has a bunch of changes but it’s all in the Bergen edition,” Colonna said. “We won’t have to pre-lay (those pages) out.”

Artists, he said, will be able to use Slot Machine to dynamically change the PlanPag database, alerting users that Bergen edition pages will be coming back. By early next year, the process will be automated. NJMG also installed Global Track, ppi’s upgrade to ppi Track, which integrates page tracking.

For its weekly publications, NJMG is deploying ppi’s QuarkXPress extension, QLink.

NJMG’s weeklies are produced with DPS Editor while The Record and The Herald use Atex’s Prestige editorial software.

“Because Prestige is a little more sophisticated, believe it or not, we had to develop a separate interface for that and we could not have used the QLink product,” Colonna explained. “But in our weekly division, QLink will be used.”

The ppi apps also give NJMG the ability to create press catalogs.

With catalogs, NJMG operators in Hackensack can configure press and press impositions in Rockaway and produce pages at the sister printing facility automatically.

One system better than two

“Instead of having two applications to lay out the paper, now we’ll have one,” Colonna said of the benefits of the ppi workflow. “I believe we’ll increase productivity by 60 percent in the first couple of weeks - and I’m being very conservative.”

All page layout, pagination, ad assembly and tracking will be handled by a single database.

The Hackensack facility is anchored by two TKS presses while Rockaway has two Mitsubishi presses and a MAN Roland press.

Although the system will increase productivity and streamline the workflow, Colonna said its cost could make it out of reach for smaller publishers.

“As far as papers our size it all depends, and the reason why I say this is because a lot of papers our size will not invest in the technologies we invest in,” Colonna said.

Commercial makes it pay

Pete Van Lenten, director of technology, said that NJMG’s commercial revenues makes it possible for the firm to invest in new technologies.

“This is flexible enough for us that it allows us to pretty much pump anything we want through the system and output it wherever we want in a variety of sizes,” Van Lenten said. “From a flexibility standpoint, for anybody that’s involved at the level we are, this would be a requirement if you want to be efficient and you want to remain competitive.”

The other value the ppi system adds, according to Van Lenten, is the continued reduction in overhead costs as consolidation of systems reduces administration.

“We like the flexibility of the system, we like the fact that we consolidate a bunch of stuff into one little bucket and we’re continuing to look at ways to do that down the road,” Van Lenten said.

Van Lenten declined to say how much NJMG spent to deploy the ppi apps.

Although NJMG did look at other workflow vendors, Van Lenten said NJMG wanted to exploit the companies’ existing relationship.

“They do a lot of work where we develop these things together,” he said. “They understand us and we understand both their strengths and honestly a few of their weaknesses. We’re looking to consolidate the number of vendors we deal with and hopefully they become diverse enough to kind of reach out and take on other little pieces of the business.”