The Post Publishing Public Company Limited

Commercial Printing

Commercial Printing enjoyed a generally successful 2007, despite the soft economy and fierce price competition throughout the sector. Besides its internal printing commitments to The Post Publishing Plc, the department also serves outside customers, who now account for more than 60% of its total revenue.

While the department is now smaller in size, it has become significantly more efficient as a result of restructuring and cost control measures geared towards maximising productivity.Meanwhile, the department continues to place strong emphasis on continually increasing staff efficiency and providing a one-stop-service to its customers.

In addition to its sales team, the department also comprises a team of creative staff who are responsible for English and Thai copywriting, design and photography, in accordance with each customer's requirements. This ability to provide all necessary services is one of the department's strongest selling points and greatest advantages over its competitors. Besides making things more convenient for customers, it also helps to cement long-term relations between repeat customers and the company.

Meanwhile, based on its ability to create high-quality print products at reasonable prices that consistently achieve comprehensive customers satisfaction,the department stands poised for expansion.

PRINTING & DISTRIBUTION CENTRE
Construction of the new printing and distribution centre at KM 19 of the Bang Na Trad highway started in November 2005 and was completed in October 2006. Installation of all equipment and machinery started in the same month.The new printing complex started printing some sections of the newspapers in February 2007. The first entire copy of the Bangkok Post newspaper printed at the new facility was the June 1 2007 edition, with the newspaper size adjusted from 15.5 inches to 14 inches in width and from 22.75 inches to 21.5 inches in height.The adjusted size saves the company 12% in paper costs. In addition, the state-ofthe-art machinery enables the company to cut paper loss by more than 50% compared with the old machines.

On November 7 2007, Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn graciously presided over the official opening of the new printing facility – the biggest single investment The Post Publishing Plc has ever made to date.The machinery installations at the new printing and distribution centre and the relocation from Klong Toey went smoothly, as planned. New machines installed at the new printing and distribution centre include:

KBA Prisma from Germany – capable of printing up to 75,000 copies per hour. Fully-computerised and with pre-setting features to ensure the highest efficiency and printing quality, this machine can print Super Panorama newspaper sections, making the company the only one in the region with this capability.

Agfa Polaris computer-to-plate (CTP) from Belgium – capable of producing printing plates, thereby completely eliminating film from the pre-press process. As such, the machine yields better quality control while optimising cost and minimising the production process, leading to a quicker printing process. Each machine can produce as many as 70 printing plates an hour.

SCHUR mailroom system from Denmark – connected to the KBA printing machine, which performs automatic inserting and bundle packing.