Finishing & Screen Printing
Trimming at full press speed
Monday 02. December 2019 - Czech media group Mafra operates two printing plants that are increasingly developing into coldset printing service providers, able to offer a broad portfolio of selected commercial products as well. The latest addition to the mailroom at the Prague printing site is a Ferag SNT-50 trimming drum, which came on stream in June 2019.
Mafra is one of the largest media companies in the Czech Republic. With its daily newspapers – such as Mladá fronta DNES, Lidové noviny and Metro – Mafra regularly reaches a readership in the millions. The Mafra joint-stock company is part of Agrofert, one of the countrys largest industrial groups.
The two Mafra printing plants in Prague and Olomouc together operate a total of seven production lines centred around Koenig & Bauer Colora web offset presses and Ferag postpress technology. Each press has an output of 37,500 copies per hour and can produce 48 pages in Berliner (“midi”) format or 96 pages of tabloid.
A Ferag UniDrum high-performance gatherer-stitcher went into operation in 2018 to handle jobs that combine coldset printed content with covers on coated paper. The UniDrum UDR2-350-ZF6 enabled stitching at significantly higher speed and has tripled stitching capacity at Mafraprint in Prague.
Investment in inline production
Inline trimming at full press speed is also of interest for newspaper supplements as well as any commercial job that can be printed in one pass and then stitched directly in the machine.
With this in mind, Mafra has once again opted for Ferag technology: in June 2019, a Ferag SNT-50 trimming drum went into operation right alongside the UniDrum. In this high-performance system, the conveyor gripper reliably holds individual stacks as they are trimmed on three sides. As the machines model name already suggests, it can trim up to 50,000 products per hour.
Mafraprint General Manager Michal Tamchyna has further increased the printing plants capacity with the Ferag SNT-50. Although many of Mafraprints in-house jobs have been keeping the trimming drum well utilized in the first few weeks already, this investment also sends a signal to external customers and once again underscores Mafraprints many capabilities when it comes to selected commercials. Michal Tamchyna was again able to rely on WRH Global Czech, Ferags Czech representative, for commissioning and support in daily operations. Scheduled deadlines and parameters were met and the General Manager is pleased with yet another “very positive” round of cooperation with Ferag and WRH Global.