The time is now for management to invest in significant process improvement

The newspaper business is a unique industry: it produces a tangible new product everyday. Papers are filled with up-to-date news and information that gets old before the day ends. Daily newspapers typically allow only two to four hours to the preparation and delivery cycle, and half that is spent in the preparation time.

Newspaper management -
including advertising-
must initiate change
by either installing
the automation
in their distribution
centers or encouraging
automation of
preparation work
in the hands of the
independent dealer.

Transforming the final stages of the newspaper distribution cycle from a costly economic drain and potential ergonomic problem into a profitable venture will require a change in the way newspaper management views the production process. This is especially true if newspaper management tries to maintain the traditional final delivery cycle that is independent from the newspaper company itself. (Maintaining this independence and direct responsibility is driven primarily by liability concerns.)

The old – yet existing – traditional process involves the newspaper furnishing independent dealers and their carriers with a complete run-of-press (ROP) newspaper that the newspaper has produced itself.

Advertising triggered a change. As pre-prints and advertising inserts increasingly became revenue-producing elements, in-plant machinery to insert advertising pieces began to replace inserting pieces by hand. Given their capacity to add to 40 or more inserts to the ROP sections of a newspaper in a very short order, these inserting machines were wonderful on small stuff.

Then advertisers realized they could control both accuracy and cost: they could have their inserts printed at one printer, then shipped to the various newspaper markets. This change in the advertising process exploded.

With the corresponding growth in revenue and facilities, plus the ability to provide a better product to subscribers, newspapers added more ROP sections targeted to the population demographics, and zone editions emerged.

But late news edition press time schedules and transportation factors (related to advance sections delivered to a dealer’s substations or distribution centers ahead of the final news edition) crunched final production and preparation time even more. In some cases, advance sections are delivered with the news edition on low-load transportation days. Other days, they might be delivered days ahead. In short, a variable production schedule developed.

But however the timing played out, the independent dealer and his carriers assumed ultimate responsibility for finishing the production by assembling the complete paper for final delivery.

Now in the beginning there were perhaps only one or two sections to assemble with the news edition. But that has grown to three, four, and as many as six sections – each weighing several ounces to two or three pounds.

Manually handling all this additional weight has created a developing ergonomic crisis in assembling completes for newspapers. Asking – for all practical purposes, requiring – workers to handle these heavier, insert-filled, multi-part newspapers papers creates performance expectations beyond the capability of the human anatomy.

It is time to change old traditions and add automation in the final delivery cycle. Newspaper management – including the advertising arm – must initiate the change. How? Either by installing the correct automation in their own distribution centers or by encouraging independent dealers to automate the preparation work.

(Read New Business Model.)