A new Ferag mailroom system component which folds newspapers or supplements on or offline at up to 60,000 cph was shown to journalists in Hinwil, Switzerland today, writes Peter Coleman.

Almost immediately cost-effective – especially for plants where there is no on-press quarterfold – the new StreamFold opens new added-value markets for newspaper printers. It will handle products up to 128 pages tabloid and between 450 x 310 mm and A4 in size, fed either as an integrated part of a gripper conveyor system, or offline using Ferag’s JetFeeders.

Pragmatically, the new system addresses the inevitable buckle in thick products by introducing one of its own … what Ferag calls a W-fold, created by a grooved roller, before crunching it to a tight, smudge-free product. Handling options include feed from a conveyor, winding onto a MultiDisc buffer, and a direct connection to a compensating stacker following a bump-turn.

The privately-owned Swiss company hosted journalists from all over the world including Australia at an event which precedes its IfraExpo presentations in Vienna next month. StreamFeeder is expected to be released at the start of next year, its price of about $170,000 making an attractive alternative to installing a press quarterfold with the necessary extra conveyor pick-up station.

Ferag says it has a lot of experience in the folding sector, having worked with publishers over the past 50 years to deliver a third fold for postal delivery. Mainly in in Belgium, France and Switzerland a ‘post-fold’ was required for newspaper distribution in the 1970s. Ferag developed a quarterfold process then which continued the production flow as a part of processing conveyor technology.

With a relaxation of postage rules, for a while the quarterfold disappeared from newspaper production, but the technology is back as an ‘added value’ option for newspaper publishers who are handling an increasing amount of commercial and semicommercial work. In StreamFold, the process has been adapted to meet increased demands for speed and flexibility with new functions and components. So simple you wonder why it hasn’t been done before (it has) the mobile unit can be hooked up to a delivery station and be fed from a UTR-linked folder delivery.Maximum thickness of the unfolded products is 100 pages, with the W-fold dealing with paper displacement in high-pagination products.

• Ferag has also announced detail improvements to the PolyStream bagging system it showed at DRUPA, with a first system going on test at gravure printer Prinovis in Liverpool, UK. The line will form part of an operation currently processing up to 40 million polybags a month, but is expected to be twice as fast as existing systems there with reduced waste. It allows up to 13 different products – print, CDs and other advertising add-ons – to be collected prior to sealing them in plastic foil. Interfaces to the JetFeeder hopper handle infeed from third party systems.