The Argus-Press in Owosso, Michigan, replaced its local workflow with the cloud-based ProImage NewsWayX production workflow to enjoy the cloud-based solution's speed and flexibility.
The Argus-Press, a Michigan-based, family-owned, independent newspaper, produces more than 50 individual newspaper titles on a commercial printing basis. Its flagship newspaper - The Argus-Press - has 5,500 weekly circulations and 26,000 on Sunday (in combination with The Argus Weekly).
Given the volume of titles and the necessary oversight, it is beneficial to the production team to have the speed and flexibility of a cloud-based system instead of the locally served system they previously relied on.
As Tom Campbell, President & Publisher of The Argus-Press, states: “We appreciate the processing speed and the ability to see our workflow operation in real-time.”
The cloud-based NewsWayX provides full access to the system, and the integrated interface enables tracking and managing production from any computer. Remote users can view the production progress, workflow steps, pages, or plates and perform a variety of operations required to manage production.
For The Argus-Press, fan-out control, visible page/plate version changes, customization of plate layouts, and last but not least, the price of the cloud service made this a rather easy decision to implement ProImage. Additionally, as an Agfa plate customer, the Argus-Press was able to roll the cost of NewsWayX solution into their existing Agfa plate agreement.
The newspaper employs a well-maintained but seasoned Urbanite press that was never engineered to print four-color with tight registration. Highly proficient press operators and the new NewsWayX now provide excellent print results. Mr. Campbell explains: “We use several fan-out sets to compensate for web growth on press. NewsWayX makes it very easy to flip yellow separation in the edition plan for direct printing. We also currently use two different ink optimization plans. One for newsprint and one for offset grade paper. We use automatic approval for pages, but manual approval for plates.”
In addition, the cloud-based platform provides newfound flexibility by allowing staff and owner to work remotely on nights and weekends rather than coming into the office. The press crew has the ability to easily check on plate status for multiple publications and adjust their preparations accordingly.
Working with the ProImage team proved once again to be a successful and reliable partnership. The Argus-Press was on a tight timeline, and it took the ProImage team only roughly three weeks to implement the workflow system. As Tom Campbell reports: “We have found the staff to be very helpful in getting us set up and operational. We have also encountered their tech support to be proactive - at least once they detected that we had a problem before we did and reached out to us.”
As for the future, Campbell contemplates the addition of an e-edition that could be automated by the PDF export capabilities of NewsWayX. Regardless of what the near future holds in regards to economic upheavals, The Argus-Press has moved forward technologically, which, as they state, ‘is already a benefit!’.