Paxton Media Group Purchases First Manugraph M360 Press Manufactured in India

ELIZABETHVILLE, PA—April 30, 2014—Manugraph Americas has announced the first sale of its M360 press, manufactured at Manugraph India, Ltd., to the U.S. Market. Paxton Media Group purchased a 20-unit M360 for a new central plant facility in High Point, NC. The facility will print daily newspapers consisting of the Durham Herald-Sun, the High Point Enterprise, the Henderson Daily Dispatch, The Sanford Herald, the Monroe Enquirer-Journal, and 10 weekly newspapers which were all previously printed on a Goss Metro press located at the Durham Herald-Sun.

"Obviously this is very exciting news for us," said Ron Ehrhardt, vice president of sales for Manugraph Americas. "Paxton has purchased equipment from DGM in the past and has been getting excellent support from our factory in Pennsylvania for years so they were very comfortable with choosing a press from our India parent company for their new facility."

The 21" cut-off M360 is a single width press with a rated speed of 36,000 copies-per-hour. Standard features include brush dampening, motorized register control, pneumatic actuation, and bearer rings on the blanket cylinders. "After acquiring Dauphin Graphic Machines (DGM) in 2007 Manugraph looked at some of the DGM designs and over the years have started manufacturing these designs in India," added Ehrhardt. "The M360 is very similar to the DGM 430MAX design."

Post installation spare parts and service support will continue to come from the Manugraph DGM facility in Elizabethville, PA. "We continue to manufacture all of the DGM line of presses there and have an extensive spare parts and service infrastructure to support any of the presses manufactured from our parent company Manugraph," relayed Ehrhardt. "In today’s press market newspapers are looking for a technically strong press specification at a value price. With our ability to manufacture in India we can offer a high tech specification at a pricing level that is only slightly more than a used press with similar capabilities. However it’s the support of these India manufactured machines from our U.S. facility that gives comfort to the customer for the long term."

The 20-unit M360 will have four High towers fed by four autopasters, and four mono-units on manual unwind stands. An F222 jaw folder with balloon former will be located in the middle of the press. The press will also have a camera-based automatic color registration system. The new press will replace a double width Goss Metro/Headliner at Paxton’s Durham Herald-Sun.

"Paxton’s move from a double-width press to a single-width press adds a lot of intrigue to this project," relayed Ehrhardt. "Twenty years ago it would have been difficult to justify a single-width press for a printing plant with multiple daily newspaper jobs. Today an eight-web single width press with 36,000 cph speeds offers a more flexible machine, and with a cut-off change to 21" significant paper savings as well."

According to Rick Bean, president of Paxton’s North Carolina newspaper division, "we really had no desire to run that big of a press anymore. Singlewide gives us flexibility in terms of paging to have A and B section with different page counts and produce our paper in straight mode at almost the same speed as our double width press.” Paxton had been considering a used press alternative for the new facility but the 21" cut-off and web width offered significant paper savings along with a more modern sized broadsheet look.

The press is scheduled for operation in July/August 2014.

Source: Manugraph.