What is thought to be the world's first fully-digitally printed newspaper made its appearance in Switzerland this week, six months after orders were signed.

The 175-year-old Walliser Bote - the Valais region's oldest - is now the most modern.

Board members including managing director Nicolas Mengis and Martin Seematter joined technical staff, printers and employees of publisher Mengis Druck & Verlag on Monday evening, declaring at 11pm, "it's about time".

A mix of HP, manroland and Müller Martini technology prints and assembles the newspaper at publisher Mengis Druck & Verlag; the HP T400 colour inkjet web integrated inline with manroland web's FoldLine digital finishing solution. A customised system based on Müller Martini's Alphaliner inserter collates sections and handles route-specific distribution and zoning of inserts.

manroland project manager Thomas Knaier says it was a memorable cooperation: "Realisation of this project was great teamwork," he says. "The total integration of the workflow consist of the press, finishing line and the mailroom technology was a groundbreaking project that also meant a lot of fun for us.

"The cooperation of all the involved partners with Mengis Druck will be kept in our minds for a long time. The schedule was tight but together we could realise it. As promised in the contracts that have been signed in January 2015, we went into production according to plan."

Digital printing is a response to lower circulations and creates opprtunities for regionalisation. The six-day daily is being produced as a postal-folded tabloid and Berliner-sized broadsheet. Currently circulation is between 22,000-32,000 copies of approximately 24 pages.

The equipment has also been configured to handle a variety of other printed matter including book blocks and mailers, and personalised marketing pieces. "We will produce our own publications and commercial print products for local customers," says director Martin Seematter. "At the moment, we are working on changing our company to a local digital printing house for the future."

After the euphoria, what next? Directors admit that they will be operating on a knife-edge in the coming months, as the inkjet line takes over from their existing web press and productivity gradually increases.

The installation is the outcome of planning for the next ten years, not only of the newspaper but its printing and publishing business. Buying a new offset press was "not suitable" as a solution, and outsourcing production brought too big a downside, they say in a Viscom interview.

The 183 metres/minute T400 inkjet web - which has a web width of more than a metre - was seen as the only option, and one which did not exist a year or two ago.

Fundamental to the decision is the need to occupy the press with other work: Seematter says the investment will only pay out if the press can also produce "an immense volume of commercial products besides the Walliser Bote," he says.

The intention is that newspaper printing will only occupy 60 per cent of available press time, and that this will decrease as production speeds increase.

"While unable to produce high-class art books, the T400 will be able to handle many products currently produced on sheetfed presses... plus a number of new products as well."

Apart from personalised mailings and books, there is the obvious opportunity to print the short-run newspaper of other publishers. "The more you think about the new possibilities of the installation, the more fascinating, almost fantastic it sounds," he says.

Mengis Group chief executive Harald Burgener says the plan is to stage the changeover from offset to digital, keeping the current web newspaper press available for the next six months. "First of all we start to run the press and transfer the production of the Walliser Bote.

"Then from the end of the summer holidays, we want to start producing the newspaper on the T400/FoldLine every night. The existing newspaper press will be installed as a back-up for about six months. Not until we really master the production the old press will be shut down."

Fundamental to this is the fact that it takes twice as long to print Walliser Bote digitally as it does on the offset line.... and the increase from two-and-a-half hours each night to five hours leaves "no resources left for mistakes".

Newspaper production director Daniel Kronig says delivery routes have been reorganised, and the publisher is looking to HP to meet an undertaking that production speeds on the T400 will be increased "step by step". Additionally, Mengis Druck is building self-sufficiency through staff training and a "huge" spare parts resource. While well-engineered and "not a toy", the system is complex and "more prone to breaks than an old newspaper press.

"We have to be able to solve almost 100 per cent of the appearing errors," he says.

All of that said, this week marks a watershed: Each newspaper's circumstances will be different, but it's clear that Mengis Druck has 'done its sums' and is confident of its digital future.

-Peter Coleman

On our home page: Project managers celebrate a milestone in newspaper printing (Photo Mengis Druck)

Right: First copies of the completely digitally printed Walliser Bote travel along the conveyor; the flexible FoldLine system (Photos manroland web systems)