A new press and mailroom system for Fairfax Media NZ is up and running in Petone, taking on both local publications and those of the Taranaki Daily News site in New Plymouth.

The Petone site, 10 km north-east of Wellington, is home to the daily Dominion Post, Manawatu Standard, Sunday Star Times and The Wellingtonian.

A 75,000 cph manroland Geoman web press - relocated from the group's former site in Tullamarine, Melbourne, and updated with a second folder and new control technology - has been teamed with relocated and new Ferag mailroom equipment to deliver more colourful newspaper products, more quickly.

"All our regular work is now running on the new press together with those newspapers previously printed in New Plymouth," says plant manager Ricky Baker. "We're just completing some additions to the mailroom including some folding and polybagging, but the press is running on schedule and we're ready to start removing the old Goss."

The $21 million investment has seen the Geoman installed and upgraded in a newly-modified press hall with a higher roof and earthquake bracing. Among upgrades to the press is the installation of a QI Press Controls automated quality control system designed to reduce paper spoilage.

Moving production of the Taranaki Daily News to the site this month, along with weekly publications, follows a production switch for the group's Manawatu newspapers. As a result, Fairfax has been able to close the New Plymouth print site, 350 km to the north, at which some of the papers had been printed for more than 150 years.

Apart from staff and overhead savings, benefits include the improved quality and unlimited colour capacity of the new double-width press. Production times for Wellington daily the Dominion Post have been reduced by 30 per cent, and for the Taranaki Daily News cut to less than an hour.

Baker says the changes are "a massive vote of confidence in print" delivering colour quality and capacity impossible at the individual sites. "The advantage of being able to print in full colour and knowing that the quality will be so good is very much the plus side of this decision," he says.

The changes are part of a 2012 restructuring programme set to save $235 million group-wide by the end of this year. After consolidating production centres in Australia, attention has turned to New Zealand, where Fairfax has printing centres in Nelson, Christchurch and Wellington printing 90 titles.

In the mailroom, capacity and functionality are being tuned to the growing demands. As well as integrating MultiDisc winding and MSD MultiSertDrum inserting to create a new online inserting facility, Ferag is installing an SNT trimming drum, a StreamFold folding unit and Polybagging for foil-wrapped print products. All of these will come under the Swiss maker's Navigator control system, delivering greater automation and transparency.

Fairfax print and distribution chief executive Bob Lockley says the fundamental changes are to enable Fairfax to meet current demands on newspaper production: "That way, we can secure the leading position of our newspapers and make sure they retain their important voice in our markets," he says.

Pictured: Mailroom elements from Melbourne have been relocated to create a new online inserting facility