Swiss press maker WIFAG has followed orders announced at IfraExpo with another large press order, this time for a Ringier Axel Springer subsidiary in Serbia.

APM Print in Belgrade will install a three-tower triple-wide Evolution 473/6 to print a trio of daily newspapers. The order follows those from ‘Hong Kong Economic Times’ and JCC Bruns, announced at IfraExpo.

At APM Print, the new press will include three 473/6 triple-width/double circumference satellite printing towers, three M60 autopasters and two 2:5:5 jaw folders. With a folder superstructure of three formers and the optional ribbon stitchers, up to 72 pages of broadsheet or 144 pages of tabloid can be combined in a variety of book structures.

The specialised Ringier Axel Springer company produces the daily newspapers ‘BLIC’ (average print run of 180,000, Jan-Nov 2011), 160,000-circulation ‘ALO’ and ‘24 sata’ (155,000 copies), as well as other publications.

With its decision to invest in a new newspaper web press, APM Print begins a comprehensive renovation of its entire newspaper production. A new press hall is being built at the current location in Belgrade's Novi district, with the Evolution 473/6 delivered in the summer of 2012 and will be put into operation in the fourth quarter of 2012 along with the expanded mailroom.

The highly-automated press systems including with WIFAG Platform+ drive and press control system colour register and no-mark cut-off register control, as well as semiautomatic plate changers, will ensure low start-up waste, consistent print quality and short change-over times. WIFAG’s own control system permits future system expansion with offset or inkjet based printing units.

At IfraExpo last year, WIFAG announced that JCC Bruns Betriebs in Minden, Germany, would install a three-tower double-width Evolution 371 to print 40,000 daily ‘Mindener Tageblatt’ and other work.

An eight-tower Solna D390 press and additional D380 towers for financial daily ‘Hong Kong Economic Times’ is the first single-width order since WIFAG acquired the Swedish manufacturer in April 2011. The orderbrings HKET’s Solna fleet to 196 printing units.