Major newspaper eliminates press holds due to short editions with improved overall efficiency.

Problem: With 7 printing lines feeding 4 bundling lines, newspaper editions were chronically short and required holding a press until the mailroom pronounced the edition complete. The pressroom lost 2-3 hours per shift as a result of this inefficiency.

Solution: Utilizing industry standard Denex sensors already mounted on the presses and mailroom stackers, ProductionACE with MDT-150 automatically captures newspaper counts by press and edition at 6 points throughout the printing and conveyor systems. One count, obtained from the mailroom equipment, verifies in real-time that the correct number of editions has been produced. Additionally, personnel in mailroom and print departments easily categorize downtime into one of 40 reasons through an MDT mounted on each piece of equipment.

Bottom Line Results: ACE accurately and immediately determines when edition numbers are met, thus eliminating pressroom holds due to delays inherent in manual tracking methods. ACE's analytical tools help to further improve overall efficiency: With plant-wide access to real-time data from the entire operation, supervisors make on-the-fly production decisions regarding press utilization and delivery schedules. Analyzing downtime and reject data enables management to determine production issues and causes for downtime and waste. Production logs are automatically generated at the end of each shift, eliminating the data entry errors and unproductive labor associated with the manual creation of reports.