The new automatic inserting line, MiniSert, is primarily aimed at small newspapers but has the potential for serving the new line of digital news publications slated to go in to regional sites later this year.
The Swiss company reinforced its commitment to developing new technology and its belief in the viability of printing during the media event at its factory in Hinwell outside Zurich last week. A gathering of the world’s graphic arts media saw Ferag bring online two pieces of equipment first shown as concepts at drupa in May.
In addition to the MiniSert, Ferag also presented its new Unicover40 for inline processing of magazine covers in the form of unfolded sheets coming directly from web offset presses to the gather stitcher. The cover hopper, which was put through it paces at the company’s PMC Print Media user park, runs at twice the speed of conventional solutions.
According to Jürg Möckli, CEO, bringing newly developed equipment to market is the distinguishing trait of the company. “At Ferag we believe in developing our own equipment, not producing copies of the competition,” he said. “Not many companies are doing this in this market. Innovation is our answer to market conditions; we intend to surprise and astonish the market with new developments. We believe in the printed word.”
While the MiniSert is targeted mainly at smaller newspapers that have up until now inserted by hand, in the Australian and New Zealand market its main potential will be for the new generation of digital newspaper presses. Although so far none are in operation, suppliers are insisting the first installation is imminent. At 20,000 finished products per hour, the MiniSert may be faster than required but it still represents the best option for automatic insertion at lower speeds.
Of course, it also represents an excellent entry level for any smaller regional newspapers that are not inserting automatically. It is completely modular in construction and able to be up and running within a week of installation.
The more conventional Unicover40 has doubled the speed of standard cover hoppers to 40,000 copies per hour. This enables it to be connected directly to the gather-stitcher. By taking unfolded sheets directly from the press it completely eliminates one production process – the separate folding machine.
With more newspaper plants producing heatset magazines the utility of the Unicover40 cannot be overestimated.