Newsprinters Ltd, the newspaper printing subsidiary of News International, has created a new production site that has become the industry benchmark for success. The Broxbourne plant, located off the M25 near Enfi eld, is the largest printing centre in the world and harnesses the latest automated printing technology.

Newsprinters developed the printing solution with industry-experts manroland AG, working alongside several market-leading partners

including Kardex Mlog to incorporate the best equipment and technology. The selection and deployment of state-of-the-art equipment has

resulted in a fully-automated, end-to-end printing solution that enables the entire printing process to take place without the need for

Revolutionising Newspaper ManufacturingAutomated high-bay warehouse for the world´s largest printing centre

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conditioning areas where packaged print reels are held following delivery to the site, along with two low-bay storage areas that supply prepared paper to reel-stands ready to feed the twelve printing presses.

On arrival at the site reels may be excessively cold, making the paper brittle and increasing the chances of a costly break during the printing process. Therefore, all reels go through a period of acclimatisation on entering the facility to achieve the optimum temperature and moisture levels. As a result, all incoming reels are stored in two temperature and humidity controlled high-bay storage and conditioning areas for between two and three days before being transferred to processing areas

any manual handling of paper. This new plant has been designed to reduce production times to allow journalists later deadlines and greater flexibility; adopt advanced automation technology to increase productivity and reduce operating costs; and to enhance printing capacity within the organisation.

Advanced Automated Storage and Retrieval

Kardex Mlog has worked closely with Newsprinters and manroland to deliver an automated storage and retrieval system at the Broxbourne facility that handles incoming paper reels and supports the required flow of paper through the printing cycle. The solution includes two high-bay storage and

The high-bay racking systems each measure 23 metres in height, and provide a total of 3,282 bays.

for removal of packaging and reel preparation.

The two high-bay storage areas each receive packaged reels via dedicated infeed routes, with reels transported directly from delivery trailers by means of two automated vehicle unloading docks and a floor-mounted reel conveyor system. The high-bay racking systems each measure 23 metres in height, and provide a total of 3,282 bays. Each bay can store one full-sized reel, measuring 2,211 mm in width and weighing up to two tonnes, or a combination of reels of smaller widths.

Both high-bay areas are served by two storage and retrieval machines (stacker cranes) located on a common rail, each with a specially designed, V-shaped,

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telescopic fork to handle the reels without risk of damage. By adopting the twin-crane format, the solution provides additional redundancy to ensure that operational downtime of a single crane has minimum impact on production at the site.

Every aspect of the solution adopts the latest technology to achieve the high levels of performance required. The cranes receive instructions remotely using wireless communication devices, whilst laser and encoder-based positioning systems in combination with the latest drive technology provide precise measurement data to ensure that crane speeds and accelerations are optimised. As a result, each crane can handle around 50 inbound and outbound paper reel movements per hour.

From the high-bay storage facilities, paper reels are transported via an automated conveyor system to six preparation lines where their outer packaging is removed and splicing tape is attached. Prepared reels are then transferred to two low-bay storage areas, each capable of housing up to 432 reels. Three storage and retrieval machines operating on a common rail serve each of the low-bay systems, providing a constant flow of paper to 60 reel-stands that supply the printing presses. An innovative rail siding area enables the selection and transfer of cranes to a maintenance zone to ensure that individual crane downtime has minimal adverse affect on production.

Your contact for this projectDirk ViehoferPhone: +49 7139 4893-305Fax: +49 7139 4893-394dirk.viehofer@kardex.com

Visit www.kardex-mlog.com for detailed information.

The entire automated storage and retrieval system is fully integrated to the Aurosys materials handling system provided by manroland AG which is responsible for controlling the entire movement of goods throughout the facility including vehicle unloading, reel transportation and storage, removal of packaging, waste paper management, reel preparation, reel-stand loading, and so on.

The Broxbourne facility is the size of 23 football pitches, with 12 full-colour printing presses each capable of printing 86,000 copies per hour, equating to 330,000 tonnes of newsprint each year. The “triple-width” printing presses can produce tabloid and broadsheet newsprint simultaneously, allowing many traditional editorial and printing deadlines to be dramatically reduced. By nature of the resulting short production lead times, high levels of equipment availability are critical to the site’s operation, and any issues or problems have to be responded to immediately. With this in mind, and in addition to performing scheduled preventative maintenance three times per year, Kardex Mlog also provided a wide-ranging training programme to ensure that more than 50 of Newsprinters’ in-house service engineers are fully equipped to support the automated storage and retrieval system in its entirety.

Clive Baldwin, Group Technical Services Engineer at Newsprinters commented: “Every aspect of the Broxbourne plant has been developed to ensure production capacity is

maintained to meet the tight printing schedules required by daily and Sunday newspapers. Kardex Mlog has become a valued partner who has not only developed a highly effective and reliable automated storage and retrieval solution, but also provided the necessary support to ensure that our printing operation continues to be a success.”

Printing Excellence

The Broxbourne plant is part of a £650m initiative undertaken by News International which also includes new investment at plants in Knowsley, near Liverpool, and Motherwell, near Glasgow.

News International’s four national newspapers – The Sun, The Times, News of the World and The Sunday Times are printed at the site totalling 15.4 million copies per week. The Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph are also printed on behalf of the Telegraph Media Group.

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