Editions   North America | Europe | Magazine

WhatTheyThink

IPS, France orders tower additions for two Goss Mainstream presses

Press release from the issuing company

July 24th, 2006 – Imprimeries IPS, the commercial and newspaper printer, based near Avignon in Southern France has ordered additional four-high Goss Mainstream towers for presses at its ISO 9001/2000 certified Chateaurenard and Fouilloy facilities. This latest order comes less than a year after an order for its third 4x1 gapless Mainstream press. Adding a fifth four-high tower to the existing Mainstream presses at each facility will increase the capacity of each press. The press at Fouilloy will be capable of printing 80 full color tabloid pages, or a maximum of 96 pages with 64 in full color. The press at Chateaurenard will be capable of producing 80 pages total all in full color. Francis Cartoux, president and CEO of Imprimeries IPS comments, “Our current Mainstream presses have fulfilled our requirements exactly and have enabled us to increase production and improve our flexibility. These new towers will improve production for us further and enable us to continue to grow into the future.” Imprimeries IPS has printed close to 1 billion newspapers in total since 2002 on the two existing Mainstream presses, including multiple titles in tabloid and broadsheet formats in run lengths as low as 10,000 copies. Technology allowing fast changeovers, and exceptional print quality with gapless blankets were critical factors in the decisions to purchase the Mainstream presses and towers. “We have never seen a newspaper press with the ability to produce such high quality,” states Jacques Fachinetti, manager of Imprimeries IPS at Reyrieux. Addition of the new Mainstream tower at the Chateaurenard facility will take place at the same time as the new four-tower Mainstream press, ordered in September 2005, is installed. Both projects are expected to be completed by February 2007. The new tower at Fouilloy will be installed over this summer. Cartoux continues, “We have chosen to install the new towers on the left hand side of each press so that there is the enough space on the right for future expansion with a further tower and folder should we require it. The installation at Fouilloy is complex but we are confident in Goss’ project management abilities that everything will run smoothly.” The installation will involve the removal and replacement of a roof section as well as the craning in of the new tower in one day. The Mainstream press at Fouilloy has produced half a billion printed copies since its installation in 2002 which is 2.5 million copies per week from one single folder. Jean Segura, Goss director of sales, concludes, “IPS has seen remarkable growth and vision, and the Mainstream tower additions ordered here will help to continue that growth. Their existing presses have demonstrated their ability to consistently deliver extremely high quality products on a variety of print runs and we hope to continue to help them develop into the future.” Imprimeries IPS added two Goss M-600 heatset presses in 2005 for high-quality commercial printing and also operates Goss Community and Universal presses. The company is a fully owned subsidiary of SPIR Communication group, one of the pioneers and most prominent publishers of free weekly newspapers in France. IPS has five print sites in France producing 184 freesheet editions and a total of 17.5 million copies weekly. They also produce more than 110 regional news publications, over six million advertising pieces and close to one million specialist periodicals.