Amedia is Norway’s largest publisher of local media titles – with a daily audience of more than two million readers and users. For its printing activities in Norway Amedia Trykk og Distribusjon, one of Norway's biggest coldset newspaper printers, runs seven printing plants spread across the whole country – from Bodø in the far north to Larvik, 1200 kilometers southward. To synchronize and coordinate the overall production Amedia Trykk og Distribusjon are using MWM's cloud-based Production Planning tool (PPC). It supports in six of those printing plants the planning for around 65 titles.

Amedia Trykk have been a customer to MWM Group (Stockholm, Sweden) for over ten years. MWM CopyTrack is used for monitoring printing production in real time and collect production data for reports and analysis. Amedia also have been using the former Java based planning system for several years, that now is being replaced by the new production planning system PPC. Started in 2014 the project at Amedia has helped to develop the new cloud based system for production planning. Project management was on the customer side led by Ketil Haugland, CTO Amedia Trykk og Distribusjon, and at MWM Group by Philip Pettersson.

PPC allows Amedia Trykk to plan titles, printing jobs and deliveries. Inserts can be booked directly on titles. Most of inserts for Amedia are imported to the system from the Norwegian national insert booking system. The newspapers are using a web portal to enter information into the system regarding circulations and number of pages. All productions are transferred to CopyTrack via interface. In CopyTrack Amedia are monitoring the production in real time and collect production data for reports and analysis.

Ketil Haugland, CTO Amedia Trykk og Distribusjon, says:

"The Production Planning Cloud gives us a great support for both our night and day operations. The scheduling and planning has become easier not only for production staff and project manager but also made it easier for our vendors and customers. We now have, in every single order, detailed information on the customer, product name, issues, number of pages, paper grade, circulations, etc. Other valuable information is that we easily get a clear view of coverage and capacity utilization."

PPC at a glance

MWM Production Planning is a cloud-based service which provides an overview of the use of production resources at one or more printing plants. The planning includes prepress, press and mailroom. The information can be accessed through the internet by all parties involved. MWM Production Planning simplifies planning for production planners and project managers.

An order describes the product, customer,  product name, editions, paginations, substrate, print runs, etc. The booking is sent to a production planner responsible for allocating resources in the press hall and mailroom (and prepress if relevant). Based on the product description and the chosen equipment, the system calculates production times for the various processes. Naturally, the planner can change the times suggested by the system.

The production planner sets how detailed the planning should be, whether down to the level of folder or printing unit and whether mailroom and prepress should be planned by line or by machine. One advantage of detailed planning is that maintenance can be planned for un-booked machines in the press hall and mailroom, in conjunction with production. With a common and comprehensive production plan, it is easy to calculate production times for each printed product.

MWM Production Planning includes a customer portal where print clients can update current production information. This reduces the number of mistakes and saves time and money for the client as well as the printing plant.