Giovanni Vaglia, who is in charge of the printroom at Mondadori Printing, Verona (left): “We need quick and reliable machines.” Right, Samuele Trovati, Sales Manager of Muller Martini Italy.

At Mondadori Printing in Verona, six Cerutti rotogravure presses with web widths between 2.25 m and 3.62 m, four web offset and ten sheet-fed offset presses provide annual outputs of up to 200,000 tons of printed paper. At such high performance-rates it is obvious that press delivery, acting as an interface between printing press and print finishing, is of utmost importance.

From PDF to delivery
For this reason, for many years, Mondadori has put its trust in Muller Martini’s log stackers – initially, the company relied on the 244 log stacker, later, on the Avanti and more recently on two AvantiPlus with a 443 palletizer. “In order to ensure efficient workflow we depend on quick and reliable machines”, says Giovanni Vaglia, who is responsible for the pressroom. “Since our machines are producing all around the clock, six days a week and often also on Sundays, reliability is a very important issue to us. The impeccable quality of the logs is a bonus improving the workflow.”

The printed products’ workflow is not limited to press and post press. “Thanks to our long experience in logistics, we can serve our customers through the entire process, from the PDF file to delivery.” One of Mondadori’s most important jobs, for instance, is the IKEA catalogue with more than 350 pages and an annual circulation of 15 million copies.

Perfect binding and wire stitching
At Mondadori Printing, 60 percent of the total volume is contract work while the remaining 40 percent are orders from the Mondadori group. The majority of the orders are perfect bound catalogues and magazines. “Due to its closeness to Milan, our subsidiary in Melzo specializes in the production and delivery of wire-stitched weekly and monthly magazines, while our main production, here in Verona, concentrates on softcover products”, explains Giovanni Vaglia.

In addition to softcover products, 300,000 out of 1.2 million copies of Italy’s major TV magazine «TV Sorrisi e Canzoni» are also printed and wire-stitched in Verona.

The 443 palletizer is equipped with horizontally and vertically moving drives, which provide a precise positioning of the log.The exact positioning of the logs forms a compact skid ensuring a gentle and safe storage of the products.

Logs in Verona, reels in Melzo
There is an additional, significant difference between the two plants in Verona and Melzo (where another four Cerutti rotogravure presses with web widths of 2.45 m are in use). In Verona, the signatures are exclusively supplied to the print finishing system via stream feeders, whereas in Melzo the feeding is automatically performed through the PrintRoll roll-system. Mondadori Printing also has PrintRoll systems in Verona, but these are only used as a backup and the signatures are unwound and logs made out of them.

The signatures are then finished with Muller Martini machines – the softcover catalogues and magazines with three high-performance Corona perfect binding lines and the wire-stitched magazines with a 301 saddle stitching system. However, the Mondadori plant in Melzo uses four Tempo saddle stitchers.