News Publishing Co. in Rome, Ga., this summer went into production with a new press, following an 11-week period where it farmed out printing of its flagship daily and 10 other related publications to four other newspapers.

The family-owned NPC, which prints the Rome News-Tribune, went on-edition July 15 with a 15-unit 430 singlewide press from Manugraph DGM Inc., said Otis Raybon, chief operating officer.

Installation of the machine began April 30, one day after press crews shut down NPC’s aging Goss Urbanite press for the last time. In the almost three months between April 30 and go-live, NPC relied on printing plants operated by The Anniston (Ala.) Star, The Daily Citizen in Dalton, Ga., the Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal and the Gainesville (Ga.) Times to get its newspapers printed.

Kudos to all

“Everyone performed magnificently,” Raybon said of the cooperative agreement among the various newspapers.

NPC never missed a single production or delivery deadline on any of its publications, and although news deadlines at a few of the smaller publications had to be altered to accommodate the shift, coverage remained strong, Raybon said.

Photos: William T. Martin
While crews tore out an older press, News Publishing Co. farmed out production of its daily and 10 other products to four neighboring newspapers. The new press (above) is a 15-unit machine from Manugraph DGM Inc. With the press project under way, NPC also overhauled its 120-year-old headquarters building, updating systems and furnishings.


 

NPC took the radical step to completely shut down production and outsource printing in order to permit crews unfettered access to the circa 1969 press hall.

“We knew we wanted to stay downtown, so what we decided to do is tear out and clean up the press hall and use the same pad to accommodate the MDGM press,” Raybon said.

The machine, configured as three four-highs and one three-high, occupies the same space as the 6.5-unit Urbanite. Crews had to make some slight modifications to the building to handle additional air-conditioning and electrical needs, but the cost to NPC was far less then it would have been to construct a new building or addition, Raybon said, even after taking into account additional print fees.

More efficient alternative

“At the end of the day (NPC President Burgett Mooney III) looked at construction costs, the cost of the loan and other fees and it was much less expensive to do it this way,” he said.

NPC production executives and news editors took weeks planning for the shift in production. Coordination with The Star was the most critical, since the Anniston paper was responsible for printing the 20,000-circulation News-Tribune.

The Star offered some benefits to NPC. First, it had the press infrastructure sufficient to handle the News-Tribune press run. Second, although Anniston is only 90 minutes away from Rome, the Alabama city is in the Central time zone, which meant NPC was able to take advantage of the hour time difference after it transmitted pages. “That hour helped us,” Raybon said.

The 10 other products, a mix of weeklies, twice-weeklies and a TMC, were farmed out to the Daily Citizen, Daily Journal and Times. NPC handled postproduction of all the publications, including mailing out the 50,000-circulation TMC.

The company’s mailroom is anchored by a Quipp Newstec SLS-1000 inserter and a 12-station C80-750 polywrapper from Sitma USA Inc., overseen by inserter control software from Videojet Technologies Inc. unit Prism.

Boost color, quality

The new MDGM press has QuadTech Inc. automatic color-to-color registration and cutoff technology, a Paretta Graphics remote inking system and can produce up to 12 color pages per 24-page run. It’s engineered with a 22-inch cutoff.

Additionally, NPC bolstered its prepress with a thermal computer-to-plate system from Kodak. It also took advantage of the construction to overhaul its 120-year-old building — a former hosiery mill — in the process sprucing up work areas and opening up windows that had been bricked up for decades,  Raybon said.

“We received tremendous cooperation from the newspapers as well as all our vendors,” Raybon said. “We couldn’t have done it without their assistance.”

Dave Moreland, MDGM’s vice president of sales and marketing, said the project highlighted how suppliers can work with publishers to save them money. “The message is that there might be alternatives to adding on to a building or having to build a new facility,” he said. “This project shows how they could spend the money they needed on the press” and eliminate unneeded expenditures.

Meantime, Moreland said MDGM sold a 440 tower with a UV curing system to Sun Publications in Bradenton, Fla. Sun, a unit of Independent Publications Inc., will use the tower in conjunction with a 24-unit DGM 430 press it’s receiving from a sister company in Hudson, N.H., to produce shoppers, community papers and commercial work.