Editor’s note: Newspapers & Technology, in conjunction with the Post Press Federation and Perfect Pallets Inc., each month publishes a question-and-answer column aimed at postproduction issues. Topics and associated responses originate from the Federation’s free online forum. Membership information and other details about the Federation, sponsored and managed by Perfect Pallets, can be found at www.perfectpalletspostpress.com.

Topic: Bundle speed

Q: Our newspaper transports bundles (3/4 wrapped with bundle and route info printed on wrap) directly to the truck driver through telescopic conveyors. We have increased the bundle size to an average weight of 20 to 25 pounds and issue a bundle every 1.75 to 2.5 seconds to the trucker.

Our average load will take about 10 minutes with the heaviest load taking approximately 40 minutes.

Does anyone have a standard for how quickly they deliver bundles to the trucks? What are peoples’ experiences with the speeds they load at?

Response: We go out the window at a rate of approximately one bundle per 3.3 seconds. We expect the driver to be able to maintain that pace.

Follow-up: I took the numbers you listed and did the math on them. If I use the lower number for the bundle weight (20 pounds), the longest average time (2.5 seconds) between bundles, and a point midway between the shortest and longest loading time (25 minutes), the driver will be lifting and stacking about 480 pounds a minute. If it takes 25 minutes to load the truck, he will have picked up 12,000 pounds. I hope your drivers are in good health.

With that being said, last Sunday we had bundles of 12 and cycled the inserter at 18,000 copies per hour. That puts us pretty close to the high side of your bundle-per-minute average.

We use page count to determine our bundle size. I doubt if our bundles were more than 20 pounds.

Most of our trucks are loaded in 10 minutes or less, with the larger ones taking about 20 minutes. We have two people loading the two largest trucks.

We probably average about 18 to 22 bundles a minute depending on the size of the bundle. This is for our Sunday advance package. Our daily paper is much lower than Sunday.

Topic: Pocket opening snafus

Q: I’m having a heck of a time with the secondary delivery on our 1372 insert machine with the pockets either not opening, or opening and closing back so quickly that they will catch the product and make a mess. I already know that I have to replace some shafts on some of the moveable walls, but there are some that just don’t want to cooperate with me.

Response: Did you adjust the levers to spec? How do the cams look? Do they have grooves? What I’ve done is put all levers to spec, then if I’m still having problems, move the pocket-opening lever up or down a little until the problem is gone. With the 1372s that we had, you could never always go to spec.

Follow-up: It sounds to me like either the inhibitor arm is hitting the pocket inhibit cam follower (not enough distance between the two), causing it to slam shut when it is supposed to be open or it’s firing too early, hitting the pocket in front of the one that should be inhibiting.

Follow-up: You might want to check and see if the pocket-unlocking cam has excessive wear.

Follow-up: This sounds to me like the delivery inhibitor assembly is worn out. Check for excessive movement or play. This can also happen if the air pressure is low or if there is an air leak to the cylinder when it fires.

Topic: FSI pallet quality

Q: What does everyone do to ensure they are getting the amount of product the shipper/printer says you are getting?

Response: We weight-verify all FSIs; this helps a lot to verify single sheets as it seems these shipments are short more often than not.

Topic: Leftover inserts

Q: Other than throwing them out, what does everyone do with leftover inserts?

Response: We recycle any leftover inserts.

Follow-up: We continue to run the inserts into zones that are in the same local area but were not included in the run order. If we have no other zones we can run the insert into, then we recycle any leftovers.

Follow-up: Our advertisers seldom provide any overage. When it is clear that they have - or they indicated that they will provide more than is required to cover the zones that they have purchased - we will offer to run them into dealer zones, which generally don’t receive all the inserts. Other than that, all our printed waste is baled and shipped to an independent company, which uses the paper to make cellulose insulation and mulch.

Topic: Skid flags

Q: Printers need to make skid flags clearer to read from a forklift or truck so you don’t have to read the fine print to get quantities, product and date.

Response: We have designed a crack and peel sheet that contains all the information we need. The sheet is attached to the side or top of the pallet.

Follow-up: We created a virtual logbook that contains all the information about each skid and has the ability to print a skid tag. Each skid gets a tracking number, and that’s how we find the proper insert. We made the date, publication and tracking number so large you can see them easily.

Topic: Managing preprints

Q: Does anyone scan the pallet tag to show that the proper preprint is moved into the inserter? We have so many different publications and so many different versions of the same advertiser that we can easily get the wrong publications or wrong version put into the machine in the middle of a run.

Response: We use four different colored skid tags, and they rotate each week. Pink is always used for TMC. I then created an inventory app and each day the jack person is given a location sheet for what is in the inventory and where it is located on the inserter.

Topic: Label production

Q: We are only getting 30 percent performance from our labelers; many labels fall off or are posted to the paper incorrectly. We also have problems with the equipment blowing fuses or throwing chains. It also appears our machines aren’t fast enough to keep up with press speeds. We have to run them on press lines as opposed to the lines coming out of the inserter since we decouple the press from postpress. Does anyone know of something we can do to increase our efficiency?

Response: We have the ProfitPackaging P3 machines and choppers. I don’t think speed is an issue with their equipment. We may not run as fast off the press as others, but their machines feed the notes as close to 100 percent as you can get. We have both off-the-press and inserter belt conveyors and also a gripper off our (Goss International Corp.) Magnapak set-up. You can adjust the positioning of the note to the paper on the fly if necessary, but once you establish the right placement for the equipment, just mark the floor so your operators know where to place it when needed again.

Follow-up: Here’s an idea that might work, depending on what delivery system you have. How many motors do you have on your press delivery system? If you have (enough), you should be able to install a different drive and control the section where the labeler is, therefore, your shingling will be adjustable. We have our labeler mounted after the inserter and have had to make these modifications to achieve a larger spacing between papers. It should also work after the press, depending on your set-up.

Follow-up: You might want to examine two other areas: the glue pattern, and also sensors. We found a pattern that worked well from NewsNotes. On the sensors, we had problems until we installed new ones from Denex. These helped ensure the label was applied more precisely. We use Accraply labelers and have GMA gripper conveyors.

Follow-up: You could have any one of three problems. First, your machine may not be high enough to place the notes on the papers. (Instead, your) machine is throwing them at the papers. This should also take care of them going on straight. Once you find a good height, just leave it set there. We never move our labeler machines around so the height setting and positioning never changes. Second, try a full glue pattern on the back. Third, we use round belting that comes with the GMA infeeds. If these are on the outside of the labeler, it will rip them off. We had to reposition the belts to avoid this.

Topic: Machine upgrade

Q: We are possibly looking to move up to a larger inserting machine, and I am wondering if there is a practical limit to the number of ads that can be inserted live without compromising deadlines. We are a morning and afternoon paper, with circulation 48,000 in morning and 43,000 in the afternoon. We use a 1472 inserter with on-line and dual delivery. It takes less than two hours using both deliveries to get the job done for each publication. The dual delivery limits us to 5:1. When that number is exceeded, we use a jacket and insert enough ads into it so there are no more than five pieces for insertion into the main section.

Response: What I see is a lot of opportunity. The 1472 is a good machine and there are ways to expand its capacity. In your situation, though, it might warrant a serious look at a new inserter.

Follow-up: I don’t know your space situation, but rather than purchasing a larger inserter, maybe you should consider buying another 1472. This gives you a backup machine and doubles your insert capacity. There are lots of them out there and would not be very expensive. You might also consider two GMA SLS-1000 inserters. These inline machines fit better into certain scenarios and the hoppers are nearly identical, so your operators’ learning curve would be small.

Follow-up: We have two press runs a day at minimum, one that is our classified section, and then the main run. We use the classified section as a cover to run all of our inserts into. This way, when our main run comes off the press, it goes straight to our distribution centers. The only delay would be for press problems.s

Follow-up: We insert live every night, all papers go out complete. Our circulation is 32,500 Sunday, 35,000 Saturday and about 30,500 weekdays. We have 2 1/2  hours on weekdays, three hours on Saturday edition and 3 1/2 hours for the Sunday edition. We run one inserter with one delivery on the final run. We have never limited the number of inserts for any day. We will prepack if we have more than 11 or 12 inserts for any day. We can go 15:1 but in order to get out on time we prepack into an early run (classified) if we are more than 11 to12 pieces. We run two prepacks for every Sunday, which are re-inserted on the final pass. Staffing is the biggest challenge; people have different days off on some weeks and work days off on occasion.