BIRMINGHAM, England - As consolidation continues to wash over the British newspaper industry - some 30 percent of newspaper production is already outsourced to third parties - Trinity Mirror has positioned itself to take advantage of the trend.

The publisher, itself created from the September 1999 merger of Trinity Plc and Mirror Group Plc, recently finished consolidating two of its printing plants into one facility anchored by four Goss International Corp. Colorliner 70 presses.

John Brewis, general manager of 
Trinity Mirror Printing, Midlands.
Photo: Newspapers & Technology

“Our goal is to achieve flexibility, 100 percent color and productivity in a 24/7 manufacturing operation,” said John Brewis, general manager of Trinity Mirror Printing Midlands. “With corporations demanding better returns on their investments, the British newspaper market has moved to further automate their operations.”

The Midlands Fort Dunlop facility is the fourth largest of Trinity Mirror’s nine plant sites. The publisher has invested more than $163 million in presses alone to beef up its regional newspaper printing sites in the last four years.

In addition to the Daily Mirror, Trinity Mirror Midlands prints three of the U.K.’s top 10 regional newspapers, three of the top six regional Sunday papers, and other publications.

A Goss Colorliner press at Trinity Mirror’s Midlands facility.
Photo: Goss International Corp.

To find out what Trinity Mirror has in store for the Midlands facility, Newspapers & Technology Publisher Mary L. Van Meter sat down to speak with Brewis. Excerpts follow:

On the goals of the new facility:

Brewis: Color demands from our advertisers drove us to demand 100 percent color from our press supplier. Distribution is a big part of the cost of publishing and with centrally located plants we can reduce distribution costs. Our desire was to bring all of our contract printing back in-house in the new printing facilities.  

On savings realized since Trinity Mirror beefed up Midlands:

Brewis: It’s only been about six months since we started up the plant so we haven’t really been able to gauge and realize our cost savings due to transition costs. However, we have reduced our labor costs by almost half. We now have more work with less labor.

On Brewis’ philosophy in managing Midlands:

Brewis: With reduced manning and increased automation everyone benefits from the human factor. We can now see everyone on a daily basis and it makes us more of a team. We look at the press as a whole team and not just a crew. Because of the flexibility we are able to produce over 90 titles a week with over 4.5 million copies a week. We are starting to integrate some of the Daily Mirror’s printing into our facility and that will bring in another 250,000 copies per day.

On training:

Brewis: Most people are brought up believing  you should have a certain amount of manpower depending upon the press or folder. Here, we no longer look at manning from a crew point of view; instead we have a team on each press and there is no division between the (units or folders) on a press. We want more volume and less downtime.

On maintenance:

Brewis: We use automatic blanket washing and each of our four shifts has maintenance responsibilities. The challenge is to get each shift to understand that they have a range of jobs, from printing to maintenance.

On the benefits, and drawbacks, of automation:

Brewis: The more you invest in capital, the less flexible it becomes. It becomes a different game interfacing with robots rather than with humans (with whom you can communicate). You have to become very disciplined about your press set-up and your jobs, which sometimes does reduce the flexibility. Some of the technology does close off options - it’s [hard-wired] into the controls and you can no longer (tell) Bob to move a roll over here.

On installation and upgrading Midlands printing capabilities:

Brewis: The installation went well. However, one gray area we found was where (some) vendors interface with other vendors. It’s important to understand and identify the specification boundaries and accountabilities among the various vendors and their subcontractors - who takes the responsibility when something goes wrong. The challenge is that vendors tend to retreat into their contracts. The issue then becomes who handles the implicit responsibility. This is where it’s in the interest for all parties to make it work and resolve the issues. That’s not always easy to define.

On what customers are demanding:

Brewis: We currently have stitchers on two of our four folders; we’re seeing an increasing trend toward stitched sections and forms. In addition, our retail supermarket inserts are increasing and (supermarkets) would like to see more polybagging so their product is on top, facing up.

On going to 100 percent color:

Brewis: There were so many more plates to handle. We wish we had purchased a semi-automatic or automatic changing system.

On what might have been done differently:

Brewis: Our architect designed the building but without any operations people involved. We actually needed an architect to reflect the way people actually work. [An example of the challenge]: We can’t see the postpress operation from the control room.