| AFL
Web Printing this summer will cap off the second phase of
a multimillion-dollar project to beef up its printing infrastructure
as the Voorhees, N.J., commercial printer fortifies its
newspaper production outsourcing services.
Now
dubbing itself a Regional Print Center, AFL, under the direction
of President and CEO Dennis G. Forchic, believes it now
has the required horsepower it needs to aggressively court
new newspaper clients.
Dennis
G. Forchic, CEO of AFL Printing, said the time is ripe to
court newspaper clients.
That
horsepower is based in part on 20 4-color towers from Manugraph
DGM Inc. that are anchoring AFL's one-year-old Secaucus,
N.J., plant. The first 12 went on-edition last year; the
remaining eight will be commissioned this summer.
The 35-year-old
family-owned firm already prints five daily newspapers from
its two plants, including The Financial Times, Women's Wear
Daily and Metro's New York and Philadelphia editions. And
more papers are on tap, Forchic said. All told, AFL is now
producing approximately 500,000 daily newspapers each night.
Branching
out
"We are
still first and foremost a commercial printer," Forchic
said, citing the firm's workload of more than 400 commercial
press runs per week, "but over the last decade we've
been able to complement our capabilities by offering daily
newspaper production."
Forchic said
the time is ripe to reach out to newspapers, particularly
as the newspaper industry tries to find ways to offset plummeting
ad revenues.
"Publishers
should become digital media content companies, and not manufacturers,"
he said. "But I also believe that the printed product
remains the most effective way to draw the public back to
the publisher's digital content.
"We have
been working on this outsourcing model for years now, and
we're ready to move forward."
AFL has spent
millions of dollars laying the foundation to support its
strategy. Some of that money came from DFW Capital Partners,
a Teaneck, N.J.-based financial investment firm that focuses
on companies offering significant growth potential.
Forchic said
the 2008 infusion didn't change the family's role in AFL;
all four original Forchic family members retain equity stakes
and Forchic himself increased his investment in the company,
thus remaining AFL's largest individual shareholder. "We
now have a financial partner that understands and agrees
with the notion of the regional print center," he said
of DFW's participation.
Better
position
"As that
regional print center concept solidifies, we are now in
a better position to continue to invest in our existing
plants as well as to expand into other geographical locations,
he said."
In the meantime,
Forchic is concentrating on exploiting the production infrastructure
housed at AFL's two facilities: the original Voorhees plant,
with 115,000 square feet, and the 150,000 square-foot Secaucus
plant, which opened for business last summer.
By this summer,
the two facilities will house nine presslines spanning more
than 160 singlewide printing units — the vast majority
from MDGM — as well as associated postpress, mailing,
distribution and prepress equipment.
In many ways,
AFL in 2009 is the logical conclusion of a journey begun
14 years ago, when Forchic said he first understood that
providing printing and packaging services to newspapers
would make sense.
"In the
early 1990s (AFL was) in a 24,000-square-foot facility in
Gloucester City (N.J.)," he said. "We were considering
expanding our operations at a time when the Internet was
threatening to make the world a paperless society."
Found
inspiration
On a visit to
the Interweb plant in suburban Toronto to look at equipment,
Forchic said he saw The Globe and Mail on the press "and
had an epiphany."
"The Internet
was not going to put printers out of business. Instead,
it offered an opportunity: A daily newspaper outsourcing
its production to a family-owned commercial printer. We
decided to move forward with the expansion."
In 2000, AFL
picked up its first daily newspaper client, Metro, and over
the past several years, "we have been moving, quietly,
toward a goal" of offering outsourced printing services
to more newspapers, Forchic said.
To do that,
Forchic said he required reliable, sophisticated and versatile
technology.
AFL focused
on a select number of suppliers with which to forge partnerships,
chief among them MDGM, Agfa, Muller Martini Mailroom Systems
Inc. and U.K.-based MIS/ERP software developer Technique
Inc.
Forchic
said he knew he wanted to base production on singlewide
presses, due in part to their faster makeready and flexibility.
|
General
migration
"We
are a transactional printer," he said, citing how singlewide
machines better support that business strategy. At the same
time, the decrease in newspaper page counts and press runs
has allowed printers such as AFL to compete in a production
universe that was formerly dominated by doublewide presses.
"There
is a general migration now to the types of presses we run
— the singlewide, one-around world," Forchic
said.
"We're
doing upwards of 500 press runs per week, with an average
quantity of below 30,000 copies, so that's a lot of makereadies.
The emergence of targeted niche publications, with shorter
runs, fits well with our model.
"I'm
not averse to the (doublewide) world, and if we had the
right account relationships we could consider it,"
he said. "But we believe our model to be the conduit
to the next phase of the industry."
To
that end, AFL equipped its Secaucus plant with MDGM's 440
semicommercial singlewide press, configured as a single
line. The 80 units, equipped with four 1240 folders, will
give AFL the flexibility to mix and match towers to folders
as needed.
Maximum
flexibility
The
45,000-copy-per-hour units, engineered with three ink formers
and three oscillators, also feature automatic color-to-color
register and closed-loop infeeds on any web, said Dave Moreland,
MDGM's vice president of sales. "Almost any tower can
go to any folder, and it gives AFL maximum flexibility and
productivity. It's the same concept that's proven itself
well over the years in the Voorhees plant."
Prepress,
meantime, is based on violet computer-to-plate systems from
Agfa and plate handling equipment from Burgess Industries
Inc., while postpress is dominated by inserters from Muller
Martini Mailroom Systems Inc.
But
the heart of AFL's operation is Technique's workflow and
production management software. The applications are hosted
on servers at AFL's corporate office, allowing AFL to orchestrate
all of its systems, from prepress to postpress, at both
production sites through a single conduit.
"The
software is the key," Forchic said. "Technique
worked for three years to create software to allow both
commercial and daily (newspaper) production, in multiple
sites, from one integrated system. It's become the backbone
of what we do."
Forchic
credits AFL's 350-plus employees for making the concept
work. "At the end of the day, our employees remain
our most important asset. As CEO, I provide the company
an opportunity to go in a certain direction, but we only
get there because of the effort undertaken by our employees."
Part of AFL's
20-tower MDGM pressline. The press is configured to allow
the printer to mix and match towers to folders as needed.
Other
sources
Forchic
acknowledges he's not the only commercial printer pursuing
newspapers. Transcontinental Inc. and Southwest Offset in
Southern California already print such major dailies as
The (Toronto) Globe and Mail, The New York Times, and the
(Los Angeles) Daily News. And Transcontinental this June
is expected to open its $200 million plant in Fremont, Calif.,
to print the San Francisco Chronicle and other titles.
But
Forchic said AFL has been able to carve a niche —
based on singlewide presses, automation and decades of experience
satisfying commercial customers — which it can exploit,
even as newspapers attempt to diversify their own revenues
by courting commercial accounts.
"I
don't believe a newspaper can justify investing in a new
press," Forchic said. "They simply can't service
the overall marketplace as well as a commercial printer.
"We
have a different inherent business model. We live and die
by servicing our customers and making them stronger. Most
newspapers never experienced this type of mentality from
their production department."
Basing
AFL's business on nimble and versatile singlewide presses,
meantime, allows AFL to help publishers "look at both
sides of the balance sheet by offering new revenue streams
not available on larger format newspaper presses,"
he said.
Cutting
won't work
"If
newspapers simply continue to focus on cost cutting, they
will eventually cut themselves out of business. We need
to change our paradigm."
Forchic
concedes the current economic landscape has further validated
the concept of outsourcing, but he also understands the
challenges all printers face as they attempt to redefine
their own businesses.
"There
will be fewer printers coming out of this downturn,"
he said. "But we believe as this industry consolidates,
our regional print center concept will help ensure our success."
|
