EP1911583B1 - Blog processing - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a process for the preparation of a printed product according to the preamble of patent claim 1 and a system for the production of a printed product according to the preamble of patent claim 15.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In the CH patent application no. 01508/06 are described a new print product, respectively a new production process and a new system for the production of printed products, which open up weblogs and the blog contributions contained therein as a news source for classical print media. The attractiveness of blog posts in classic print media, in particular current blog posts in daily newspapers is described in more detail in the aforementioned application and reference is made in detail to the full extent to the statements there. For example, blog posts that address or replace agency reports and correspondents' reports in print media can appeal to a new readership or even satisfy previously unmet information needs of existing readers or even arouse them. The aforementioned application proposes to produce a non-individualized printed product with high circulation as low as possible.

In the present application, the advantages of the blog posts in the print product should now be used to produce a partially individualized print product.

The topic of individualized printed products has occupied the printing industry for decades. From simple address printing on a newspaper to a completely individual printed for a reader newspaper various technical solutions have been proposed. The desired individualization seems to be positively correlated with the costs, so that in all known methods and devices, of which at least in the field of daily and weekly newspapers, no single on the market could prevail, the price of the product with the increasing degree Individualization inevitably increases.

In competition with other newspapers and in particular the electronic media are the classic print media, and here again especially the daily newspapers, also under increasing currency pressure. The use of high-performance systems, which currently produce up to 80,000 products an hour, not only keeps production costs low, but also allows the deadline to be postponed further, since production takes less time. The reader expects that "last minute" events will be reported from the evening, the next day in the newspaper. The desired customization is therefore still an enormous topicality.

The cost problem of the desired individualization has long been known, and so is for example in the EP0805756 the applicant described a method whose basic idea is to consistently use digital printing to the highest degree of flexibility. Since digital forms are actually constantly re-creating "printing forms," the flexibility of such processes is orders of magnitude greater than the flexibility of printing processes using actual printing forms. The term "digital printing" is in the EP0805756 As in the present application for all printing processes in which no stable printing forms are pressed onto the paper, but in which a "writing means" is digitally controlled such that it, continuously correspondingly changing, the prescribed pattern writes on paper. The best known of these methods are, for example, laser and ink jet methods and various thermal methods. In the present invention, the printing form-bonded printing methods are generally referred to as "conventional printing" unless expressly mentioned. For the present application, conventional printing is also to be understood as meaning, in particular, high-performance printing in which quantities of 80,000 printed products per hour and more are achieved today.

In the proposed method of EP0805756 For example, the material to be printed on and the further processing of the printed material into finished print products are consistently matched to this high degree of flexibility. With a digital printing method all printed pages of a printed product are printed on the front and back of a quasi-endless paper web. For printing, the paper web is guided substantially continuously by a corresponding printing device and printed in the form of both sides of at least one row of adjacent printed pages. The paper web is folded before or after printing between the pages of printed or already printed rows of printed pages to a folding stack and divided transversely to its longitudinal direction or at least brought into an easy-to-separating state (eg perforation or partial separation). In this way, a sequence of leporello (folding-stack) -shaped printed products, whose respective first and last page are possibly still connected to each other, but easily separable. It is from the EP0805756 already known that such printed products are distributed directly in the Leporello form to the reader or further processed into various forms known per se of printed products. Despite the advantageous proposed solutions, the cost of producing such an individualized printed product to the same extent, especially in use of color printing, far beyond the cost of a conventional high-performance process product. The cost problem is not solved satisfactorily.

In the publication to EP0805756 With the loss of efficiency and the associated cost increases, two problems have already been addressed which bring about the desired individualization of printed products such as newspapers and magazines. Also discussed in this specification are approaches to appropriately organize the desired smaller runs and increased copy customization in the further processing of the printed matter and, in particular, to tailor, control and couple the post-processing devices to increase flexibility and to a greater degree to make individualized products without the printing process itself being changed. It is proposed newspapers or magazines, which have been printed in a uniform edition, to customize by the following processing steps and to make ready for dispatch: inserting compiled depending on the addressee supplements, which be printed at least in part by a specially designated printer address specific can (eg provided with individual sender address reply cards), additional individual printing on inside or outside (eg individual addressing), packaging depending on addresses individually or in collective packages, for which collective packages with another printer, for example, address sheets and delivery notes are produced. It is also proposed to put together the individualized journals in a postroutengerechte sequence and pack into bundles. In the EP0805756 However, it is already recognized that the software and the tax expense for such procedures is obviously considerable and accordingly, a very simple production method for Leporello-shaped products is proposed, which is very well suited for decentralized production. Preferably, digital print data from various sources are delivered to the most diverse production locations on demand, for example via the telephone network.

Despite this possible decentralization, this method of producing individualized printed products, like many other generic methods, has not been successful in the market until now.

The DE10300071 A1 describes a method for attaching addressee-specific media to printed products. An EDP-supported database structure is provided which in each case assigns information to an addressee of a printed product which characterizes the addressee. A plurality of addressee-specific media is produced using information from the database structure, with one medium each containing information specific to each addressee. The addressee-specific printed products are completed, wherein a respective printed product becomes address-specific at least as a result of an addressee-specific medium being applied to at least one designated location. The printed matter is provided for an addressee-specific delivery based on information from the database structure or / and information carried by an addressee-specific medium.

The desired individualization in the context of conventional high-performance printing leads in the known solutions to complex systems that are prone to error by their complexity and / or require expensive higher-level control systems, which tend to failures and related system interruptions.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a method and a system for the production of printed products of the type mentioned, which avoid the disadvantages described above.

The invention also has the object to use known high-performance methods and systems to produce a cost-effective printed product that allows a selectable degree of individuality and high relevance. This task is to be solved for various types of printed products, for example, for large compiled and / or stapled printed products with blog posts.

It is also an object of the invention to provide a method and system for effecting integration of die-bonded high-performance printing processes and die-bound printing processes in the production of a partially individualized printed product, particularly for creating a product with blog posts.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a method and a system which provide correct addressing and, in particular, a correct sequence of the products to be addressed and addressed, and thus the subsequent ones Delivery at higher efficiency without increased machine costs easily and inexpensively.

This object is solved by the features contained in the characterizing part of claims 1 and 15.

In the method according to the invention, printed products, which were preferably produced in a conventional high-performance printing process, for example by compression molding in rotary printing, are provided with an identification means (IM) in the rotation or between rotation and a first further processing device connected downstream of the rotation. The identification means carries the information for identifying the products and makes them identifiable. This identification can be done preferably at a level that allows identification of each individual printed product, and will be referred to below as individual identification (indexing). In contrast, groups of products can also be provided with an IM with identical identification information, which should be referred to as omnification in the context of this application. According to a first preferred embodiment of the invention, the identification means is assigned an ID tag, which in the printed state is preferably implemented as a machine-readable two-dimensional or matrix bar code. Basic information on various types of bar codes is known and is available, for example, on http: // en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_code available and should not be repeated here. With the help of two-dimensional barcodes, such as the Data Matrix Code, depending on the size of the tag, up to 2 kilobytes of data can currently be stored and displayed in printed form. The code is attached either directly to the printed product or to an adhesive label to be affixed to the printed product, either in a digital printing process. Alternatively, the identification means (IM) can also be used as electronically readable or readable and writable electronic memories, preferably as tags in Realize the form of RFID labels. Combinations of the aforementioned identification means (IM) are also possible. Thus, for example, printed RFID labels can be glued to the products as needed with a visible-side mounted visually detectable matrix code.

According to a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, the identification means (IM) is not mounted directly on or on the printed product, but the print product solvable, temporarily spatially assigned directly. The identification means may in this case be embodied, for example, as readable and writable electronic memories, preferably in the form of RFID tags in a transport unit assigned to the printed product, for example a pocket of a plug-in device and / or a gripper of a gripper transporter.

According to a further preferred embodiment, the assignment of the identification means to the printed product is no longer in a spatial assignment, but in a higher-level control device that detects the position of each product in the production process in relation to the processing stations used in the process and at the same time preferably assigning the product-specific identification means in the form of an electronic identification code in the control device.

The identification means (IM) in preferred embodiments, in which the printed products are provided directly with the IM, at least one identification (ID) tag, which in turn consists of a number of one-bit codes and at least one multi-bit code. It has proven to be advantageous to attach the ID tags directly in or immediately after the rotation at the interface for further processing, in any case before the first downstream processing station to the printed product with a digital printer. Preferably, it is the major products that are so identified.

In the case of complex compiled printed products, which for example comprise a main product and a plurality of first-order partial products and / or advertising inserts which themselves contain second-order inserted partial products, the first-order partial products are preferably also provided with an IM. For the sake of simplicity, however, the basic idea of the invention will only be explained below using the example of an indexing of a main product of a daily newspaper. For example, an ID tag is printed on each major product by means of a digital printing unit (e.g., an ink-jet printer) in or after the edge margin rotation. The ID tag is preferably positioned in the edge region of the front side, and is not cut away in the case of a possible edge trimming. In the simplest case, it consists of a multi-bit code, which can be, for example, an individual or group-related product number. Preferably, however, the ID tag comprises one or more control information for downstream processing units, which in turn are configured in the simplest case in each case as 1-bit codes. When referring to an ID tag in the present application, this is not meant to imply that the ID tag is printed as a spatial entity. It is quite possible to position parts of the ID tag that form a functional unit at different points on the front page if this improves readability or facilitates later reading.

The information contained in the ID tag comes from a higher-level control system and is supplied to the digital printing unit online or via a locally readable storage medium and preferably temporarily stored in the digital printing unit.

As already mentioned above, the present invention is preferably used in the production of addressee-specific individualized printed products. According to a preferred embodiment, these are printed products, such as newspapers and magazines, which comprise individually composed blog posts for the addressee, for example in the form of a blog insert as a plug-in product. The addressee, that is the subscriber the newspaper or magazine, receives a blog supplement, which is individually put together for him. The method and criteria for selecting the contributions to the blog supplement are known to the skilled person mainly in the field of individual electronic journals, also known by the catchword "Daily Me". The subscriber has the opportunity to have the contributions compiled according to his specifications. Preferably, this is done via an online access to a user portal. A user profile is generated and saved which forms the basis for a preferably automated selection of blog posts for the addressee-specific blog insert to be created. The possibilities for producing an individual electronic newspaper are described, for example, in the publication "Opportunities and Risks of Individual Information Transfer" by R. Specker from 1997. In the context of the present invention, the term blog posts also includes in the broader sense also advertisements and editorial contributions as well as picture material which is assembled in a prepress stage in the layout process into one or more pages.

It is known to the person skilled in the art that printed products, which are put together individually for a known addressee, offer extremely interesting and lucrative advertising possibilities. The technical aspects of the implementation and use of these advertising options will therefore not be discussed in more detail below.

The blog posts are, as previously mentioned, preferably added in the form of a digitally printed blog supplement to the conventionally produced and previously indexed printed product. As will be explained below, the indication of the conventionally produced product allows the correct addressing and the correct assignment of the addressee-specific blog supplement, wherein these two method steps can also be carried out in the reverse order.

Usually, only a certain proportion of an edition of a printed product, for example the daily edition of a daily newspaper, is addressed to the readers by post. A large part of the daily circulation is sold anonymously, for example, at the kiosk, and another part is delivered via subscribers to subscribers in certain regions. A partial individualization of the printed product lends itself only to the directly addressed and to the well-known subscribers delivered newspapers. By contrast, non-individualized standard products enter the kiosk sale. The invention now offers the possibility of integrating the production of the non-individualized standard products and the partially individualized printed products in one process. Not only does the present invention permit the individual addressing of a newspaper and the addition or attachment of addressee-specific blog posts, but it also enables the addressee-specific or at least region-specific collation of a selection of sub-products to an addressee or regional specific end product.

As a further extremely advantageous aspect of the present invention, the integration of control instructions for any, the conventional printing process downstream processing steps, respectively processing units such as feeding stations in the identification means, preferably in the ID tag, has proven. In the simplest case, the control instruction as to whether a particular investor should plug a partial product into a main product can be read directly from the main product by means of a suitable optical sensor upstream of the feeder. The present invention thus offers a very simple interface through which workstations can be integrated into an existing production system, such as by third-party providers. In the case of the optically readable ID tags, for example in the form of a barcode, the workstation to be integrated does not need to be connected to a higher-level system and be controlled with a control instruction for the product to be processed, but it can work autonomously, since the respective product has the Instruction to perform or omit the operation itself.

The identification means (IM), which in the process according to the invention is assigned to each main product or partial product immediately after the pressure-form-linked production, therefore contains information that the corresponding digital printing station or another device for generating the information to be stored in the identification means (IM), in such a way with the product in Make active compound that they are at least during the manufacturing process with this functionally connected. In the example that has already been mentioned several times, the information contained in a printed ID tag contains a product identifier that is individually different for each product, previously referred to as an identification, contained and readable. If 100,000 copies of an edition of the sample newspaper are produced on a single system, then 100,000 individual product identifiers are generated and printed accordingly. The product identifiers are preferably already associated with an information on the addressee, or even contained in the product identifier readable. This assignment can also be made at a later time point downstream in the manufacturing process. In the former case, for example, the individual product identifier that is already assigned to a subscriber is assigned to addressee-specific control information during the indexing process and integrated into the ID tag accordingly. This addressee-specific control information includes, for example, the instruction to a downstream investor to insert a partial product into the addressee-specific main product. For example, if subscribers subscribed to Auto, Business, and Sports sub-products as part of their subscription, the printed ID tag will include the corresponding positive tax codes for those three sub-products, and the addressee-specific "sample" product will be traversed In the production path, the investors in the car, business and sports sub-products are controlled in such a way that they each insert a sub-product. On the other hand, all other investors will not be activated, so that the manufactured "sample" product will only include the sub-products desired by Herm Muster. Accordingly, a negative selection can be made, so that Mrs. Meier a newspaper without car and sports part, respectively can order without partial product from the ranges car and sport. Based on this customer order, which is stored in the customer database of the higher-level tax system, negative tax codes for exactly these three sub-products are printed during the indica- tion, ie when the "Meier" ID tag is attached. If, for example, seven topic-specific subproducts are provided in the unchanged standard product, then Mr. Muster would receive only the three desired subproducts auto, business and sports in addition to the main product, while the system according to the invention for Ms. Meier will combine the main product with the remaining four topic-specific subproducts.

An inventively controlled collating can be accomplished advantageously with a device for collecting in a broad sense. Collecting in a broader sense means collecting in the narrower sense, as well as insertion and gathering. For the production of such printed products in high-performance processes, collecting, inserting or collating drums or corresponding routes for collecting, inserting and / or collating are known from Ferag AG, for example. In collecting saddle-shaped carrier, when inserting and gathering V-shaped compartments are continuously passed past at a plurality of addition points and at each feeder is usually added a further component, for example, another sheet or another partial product to the resulting product. In collecting, starting with an innermost folded sheet, inserting an outermost, folded sheet or main product, starting with a first mostly unfolded component. The person skilled in the art is aware that collecting, inserting and collating methods can be combined accordingly. With the well-known high-performance facilities currently achievements of 40,000 to over 80,000 products per hour can be achieved. The conveying path of the printed products between two investors or other processing stations, for example, in the insertion and insertion drums of Ferag AG preferably each comprises a region of the transverse feed, in which preferably a sensor, for example, in the form of a bar code reader can attach to the product to be processed is pushed past and read when passing through the production path at a suitable speed. In collecting devices, such as the saddle stitching drums of Ferag AG, as for example from the US5324014 are known, the sensor is preferably arranged in a saddle-shaped carrier in the region of the transverse feed between two feed stations. The sensors can also be arranged at a distance from the device for collecting, inserting or collating, as can be seen from FIG US5613669 (Ferag AG) is known. When collecting in the strict sense, it has been proven to attach the product identifier, for example, each on the prefold on an inner side. When processing in insertion drums, corresponding to an outside. For the skilled person, the terms main and partial product in connection with the previously mentioned types of collating, collecting and insertion are clearly documented and he knows the relative position of the products to each other, their orientation in the production process and the timing of their supply.

A decisive advantage of the invention is that the addressee-specific collation is controlled without direct control instruction of a higher-level control system only by the information contained in the ID tag. The higher-level control is not only relieved enormously, but the process is much more robust, since even in a complete failure of the parent control the already-indexed products are correctly collected. To make the system even more stable, all the information needed to generate the ID tags of an entire run can be stored in the corresponding unit, for example in the digital printer in the rotation, so that they are available locally and independently of the higher-level control ,

Both example products can then be further customized according to the customer's wishes. For example, the "sample" product can be accompanied by an addressee-specific blog supplement on the special themes of Champions League and professional football corruption, and the "Meier" product receives a blog supplement on environmental scandals in China and the suppression of Linguistic minorities in the former Soviet Union. While in the case of product customization by addressee-specific compilation, the topic selection is limited to the prefabricated conventionally manufactured subproducts, the topic selection for the compilation of the blog supplement is almost unlimited. As already mentioned, the pre-selection for the blog topics is preferably made by the subscriber via an online portal, and, like the selection of the sub-products, can be changed as often as desired, even from issue to issue, and stored accordingly in the addressee-specific subscriber profile ,

In addition to the customization carried out on behalf of or at the request of the addressee / subscriber, the present invention offers the possibility based on the addressee-specific subscriber profiles, respectively on the selection of the partial products and / or the blog topics the final product to be produced with the addressee -specific advertising. This can be done in the field of gathering, for example, by inserting target group-specific high-quality conventionally produced advertising inserts, pasting of such postcards, vouchers or product samples and in the case of digitally printed supplements such as the blog insert by integrating addressee-specific advertisements in the supplement Layout. The person skilled in the art recognizes the enormous potential for target-group-oriented advertising, up to completely individualized advertising, which the system according to the invention primarily offers through the integration of printing plate-bound high-performance printing processes and printing plate-unbound printing processes in the production of a partially individualized printed product, and is without inventive Dzuutun able to exploit this potential through needs-based adjustments for the specific individual case.

The fact that in the efindungsgemässen process inventive teilindividualisierte products are integrated with non-individualized standard products in a preferably or partially parallel production path, can also be for problems in addressing with missing or incorrectly assembled teilindividualisierten products, and since the proposed by us direct or indirect identification of products offering new solutions. When indexing the main products, the non-individualized standard products and the partially individualized products are preferably placed in an order ensuring that at the end of the production path prior to addressing, there are mini-clusters each of a partially individualized product and one or a plurality of non-individualized standard products , Should an error occur during the addressing, or should an addressee-specific, partially individualized product be missing, the or one of the immediately following non-individualized standard products can be addressed as a substitute.

In order to prevent negative customer reactions, according to a further embodiment of the invention, the addressee is informed that he does not receive his subscribed partially individualized product but a non-individualized standard product. The subscriber's information can be provided by an additional text block preferably created together with the addressing in digital printing , or by the subsequent sticking a corresponding note done. This can be done very elegantly with a device as they look EP1106550 . EP1086914 and EP1275607 known by the Ferag AG and established very successfully in the market under the brand name MEMOSTICK ^® In order to increase customer loyalty even more the MEMOSTICK ^® note with the information about the Incorrect product additionally include a voucher for a free purchase of another printed product of the respective publishing house.

To implement the inventive systems with the previously described identification means (IM) as electronically readable or readable and writable tags sensors are used in the form of known electronic writing or reading / writing devices that are suitable for non-contact data transmission and identification change. These system elements also represent generic interfaces that facilitate the integration of third-party workstations or system components.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

Figur 1

den prinzipiellen Ablauf eines Verfahrens und Aufbau eines Systems gemäss einer bevorzugten Ausführungsform der Erfindung;

Figur 2

einen ID-Tag gemäss einer bevorzugten Ausführungsform der Erfindung, wie er im Verfahren gemäss der Figur 1 zum Einsatz kommen kann;

Figur 3

einen Ausriss aus der Titelseite eines Druckproduktes mit Adressaufdruck und einer Information zu einem Produktionsfehler;

Figur 4

einen Ausriss aus der Titelseite eines weiteren Druckproduktes mit digital gedrucktem ID-Tag und einer MEMOSTICK® Information zu einem Produktionsfehler; und

Figur 5

den prinzipiellen Ablauf eines Verfahrens und Aufbau eines Systems gemäss einer weiteren bevorzugten Ausführungsform der Erfindung.

Preferred embodiments of the inventive methods and systems are described below with reference to the drawings. Show it:

FIG. 1

the basic sequence of a method and construction of a system according to a preferred embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2

an ID tag according to a preferred embodiment of the invention, as in the method according to the FIG. 1 can be used;

FIG. 3

an excerpt from the title page of a printed product with address imprint and information on a production error;

FIG. 4

an excerpt from the title page of another printed product with a digitally printed ID tag and a MEMOSTICK® information on a production defect; and

FIG. 5

the basic sequence of a method and construction of a system according to another preferred embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

In FIG. 1 the basic sequence of a preferred embodiment of the inventive method is shown. It must be emphasized that in this overview essential elements of the invention have been omitted for clarity. The process within and immediately after the conventional high-performance printing press 1 is not shown here in detail, but it is assumed that starting products, here main products 2, are conveyed with conveying means (not shown) or in a conveying system along a conveying path 3. The main products are provided in the illustrated embodiment immediately after the rotation 1 with an ID tag 4, which are printed by means of a digital printing unit, not shown in the figure, for example, a high-performance inkjet printer. Each major product 2 leaving the rotation is assigned a unique product-specific ID tag 4. The addressee-specific information, or the control instructions, for the creation of the ID tags 4 are supplied by a higher-level control unit 5. The main products 2, each provided with a product-specific ID tag 4 or indexed, are fed to a insertion drum 6 for further processing. In this sub-products are supplied from storage units such as winding or six investors 7-12. As described above, but not shown in the schematized figure, each one transverse to the investors 7-12 cross conveyor unit in the insertion drum 6 includes a sensor for detecting a product-specific control information of the ID tag 4. For the coded in the ID tag control information is sufficient 1 Bit code, since the investor only needs the information regarding the respective main product, whether he should plug in a partial product or not. It is obvious that after passing through the six investors 7-12, depending on the control instruction of the ID tag 4, a great variety of partially individualized intermediate or end products can be produced. The selection of six partial products allows all variants from the bare main product, up to the main product with six different inserted partial products. The sub-products inserted by means of the illustrated feeders 7-12 can be conventionally produced first-order or second-order sub-products with editorial content or pure advertising supplements or combinations of both. In general, the sub-products may also be region-specific products which can not only be supplied specifically to the addressee, but are also added to a part of the order destined for this region. Such products include the regional portion of a newspaper as well as an advertisement supplemented by the purchasing power of a particular region or district.

After passing through the investor 7-12, the subsidized products are passed to a blog investor 13 who can add a blog supplement to the already partially individualized intermediate product or the non-individualized standard intermediate product. The blog supplements 15 are printed in a digital printing unit 14 specific to the addressee, wherein the necessary layout information or the necessary files with the data to be printed, preferably in PostScript or PDF format, in turn from the higher-level control unit 5 via a data line 16 are sent to the digital printer 14. The blog investor 13 includes a cache 17 in which a plurality of addressee-specific blog supplements 15 are kept ready for insertion. The higher-level control unit tunes the print sequence of the addressee-specific blog supplements 15 to the upstream in the upstream process of gathering partially-individualized address-specific intermediates that the blog supplements 15 are kept ready for insertion in the correct order. The superordinate controller defines the product sequence or sequence already during the identification of the main products so that each major product to be provided with a blog supplement preferably follows at least one non-individualized standard intermediate product. The addressee-specific multi-bit code in the ID tag must therefore be read in the conveying direction before the blog investor 13 only by a sensor and the appropriate blog supplement 15, which is preferably provided an identical addressee-specific multi-bit code in an ID tag, not shown , can be plugged in. Should be a partially-customized address-specific intermediate, for that a suitable blog supplement is kept ready, due to a malfunction in the upstream production path is missing, so in the blog investor prepared to submit in the forefront blog insert is inserted in the next non-standardized standard intermediate product. The superordinate controller 5 is informed by the investor about this process and assigns the addressee-specific information of the inserted blog insert to the multi-bit code of the previously non-individualized standard intermediate product. From the non-individualized standard intermediate product has now become a partially defective individualized address-specific intermediate product, which is provided in a subsequent addressing with the correct, suitable for blog supplement, address. It is a very decisive advantage of the inventive intermediate product sequence that the replacement of a missing, to be addressed intermediate product can be accomplished from the product stream, and no additional devices for feeding or storing reserve intermediates are necessary. The advantageous selection of the sequence of anonymous, non-individualized standard intermediates and individualized intermediates to be addressed in the product stream, also called nesting, inherently encompasses the required reserve of non-individualized standard intermediates and makes them available in a timely manner to the missing intermediate product for further addressing. specific individualization ready.

The addressing unit is therefore delivered all sub-products to be addressed in the correct order, so that the correct sequence of the addressed products is complete. This allows the addressed products to be properly bundled for subsequent delivery or bundled into packages without the need for post-processing.

In the FIGS. 1 and 5 the sequence of intermediates according to the invention is symbolized in each case by the fact that the individualized intermediates to be addressed in the product stream are marked with B, while between them arranged non-individualized standard intermediates have no special labeling.

According to the present invention, the sequence of the individualized intermediates B to be addressed and the non-individualized standard intermediates can be adapted to the typical malfunctions of the processing equipment. If it is only to be expected that individual products are missing, the product sequence is chosen such that in the course of the conveying path one group of addressee-specifically partially individualized intermediate products is followed by at least one, preferably several, non-individualized standard products. The group of addressee-specifically partially personalized intermediates is preferably no larger than a group which usually forms a package for mailing. Preferably, the group is at most half as large. If the addressed products do not necessarily have to be printed at the beginning of a run to enable their timely delivery, then it is even preferable to keep the groups of addressee-specifically partially personalized intermediates small. In the case of a repetitive sequence of in each case one addressee-specifically partially individualized intermediate product B and at least one, preferably several, non-individualized standard intermediate products, it is ensured that for each missing or defective addressee-specifically partially individualized intermediate product B a non-individualized standard product Intermediate is available.

The rejection of defective products in the post-press is known in the art, and need not be further explained here. If larger groups of missing addressee-specific partially individualized intermediates are to be expected, the group sizes of non-individualized standard intermediates will be adjusted accordingly. According to the present invention, the above-described indexing of the main products of the higher-level controller 5 allows products to fail very flexible to respond. If, for example, when compiling the products, an error occurs which creates a gap of 40 intermediate products, the controller detects, for example, via a field bus 18 as described in US Pat FIGS. 1 and 5 is indicated, the error and the number of affected products and assigns a corresponding number of coming from the production 1 or from a memory 30 not provided for an addressee-specific individualization main products dynamically the corresponding individualization steps of the missing products.

In a preferred embodiment, the major products are not indexed until after injection from the memory 30, i. provided with the ID tag 4. Regardless of whether the main products come online from the rotation or offline from a storage device, this lets you index them in the order in which they are fed into postpress.

In the advantageous embodiments according to FIGS. 1 and 5 downstream of the addressing unit 19, a MEMOSTICK® unit 21 is arranged, which allows partially defective, addressed end products to be provided with a MEMOSTICK® note, which informs the recipient about the error and, if necessary, offers a form of compensation.

Likewise, addressed end products, which for example lack the ordered blog insert, may be provided with error information directed to the subscriber.

In other equally preferred embodiments, this information about the defective product is printed on the main product or an address envelope when addressing.

By means of a switch 20 or an element having the same effect, the individually addressed end products 22 are subsequently removed from the non-individualized standard end products 23 separated, respectively divided into two separate product streams, which are supplied in a known manner for shipping. In further preferred embodiments, the diverter for separating the streams is already located after addressing or after the blog feeder. The speed of the products to be promoted in the addressing is thereby reduced, but the simple possibility of addressing addressing errors is lost.

In the FIG. 2 an example of an ID tag 4 is shown, as for example in the method according to the FIG. 1 can be used. In the left-hand area of the tag six six-bit codes 31-36 are shown, for example, the six investors 7-12 according to the FIG. 1 can control. A pixel in the top row 38 may code for the insertion by the respective feeder, while a pixel in the bottom row 39 leaves the respective feeder inactive. In the example of FIG. 2 For example, a major product having the illustrated code would insert the partial products of the feeders 7, 9, 11 and 12. In the right-hand area, the ID tag 4 comprises a multi-bit code 37 which contains the product-specific information and may additionally already include address-specific information.

In the FIGS. 3 and 4 Examples of incorrectly assembled products are shown, in which the addressee according to FIG. 3 by a text imprint 25 in the immediate vicinity of the delivery address 24 or according to FIG. 4 is informed of its faulty newspaper by a MEMOSTICK® note 26 above an ID tag 4 '.

In further embodiments of the present invention, not shown in the figures, main and / or partial products and in particular the blog inserts according to the invention are produced with high-performance digital printing systems that can currently print up to 250 A4 pages per minute. Experience has shown that it can be assumed that the The performance of these high-performance digital printing systems will increase significantly in the next few years, while at the same time reducing costs.

In the FIG. 5 Another preferred embodiment of the present invention is described in which the main products 2 from the rotation 1 are, for example, temporarily stored on wraps 30 in a disk pool. If a production interruption occurs due to a plate change in rotation, the previously printed main products can be unwound and sent for further processing. According to further advantageous, not shown in the figures, embodiments, the identification is not already in the rotation or immediately after the rotation, but only when unwinding or the subsequent feeding the unwound products for further processing.

The ID tag 4 'remains readable on the main product, as shown in the FIG. 4 is shown, so defective products that have been eliminated during further processing using a hand-held scanner or a test station identify and the controller can be queried online the product information on the faulty product and displayed on the scanner or the test station. The operator can be informed in the simplest way about the error and the necessary steps to remedy. If, for example, a particular sub-product has not been inserted in the product, this error information is recorded in the controller 5, and when the ID tag is read in at the testing station, the information is automatically displayed at the testing station and the worker is informed as to which sub-product is to be supplemented , so that a manual control of the defective product is eliminated.

The ID tags that remain on the product also make it easy for publishers to identify remittances, especially from kiosk sales. The product specific Individual ID tags according to the present invention should not be confused with commercial stitch codes already used today to identify a particular edition of a newspaper. These known bar codes are standardized in accordance with ISO / IEC 15420 and are used only with a valid number, for example an EAN number. According to the EAN General Specifications, two-digit or five-digit additional codes can be printed directly beside the EAN to encode the issue number of a newspaper or magazine. Individual product recognition is not possible with the known commercial barcodes.

Since, in accordance with the present invention, the partial products can also be indexed, that is to say provided with ID tags, for example, the ID tag on the partial products can be used as a feed control code in order to ensure the correct collection of the product. The new system therefore allows the ID tags on the main products for individual identification and as described above to use as control codes and at the same time ID tags can be used on the sub-products as control codes. It already suffices to easily match corresponding 1-bit codes to main and sub-product in order to control the correct feeding. Since such a check can be carried out with the simplest means directly at the respective feed or processing station, the higher-level control system is enormously relieved. To represent this relief are in the FIG. 5 all connecting lines between the parent controller 5 and the respective production units shown in dashed lines.

Also in the FIG. 5 It is indicated that blog supplements 15 can optionally be introduced into the products B via a feed device 12 or by means of a processing device 24 downstream of the processing drum 6, preferably in turn a processing drum or a circulation system.

Claims (15)

1. A method for producing a printed product, a printed product that is produced in a printing form-bound high-performance process in the form of a main product (2) or a sub-product being provided with identification means (IM), which include customizable product-specific information, and at least two further downstream customization steps being carried out, characterized in that control statements for the at least two further customization steps are incorporated into the identification means so that the identification means allow the information that is to be added in the at least two further downstream customization steps to be associated with the respective product.
2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the at least two further downstream customization steps each include at least one digital printing process.
3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the downstream customization steps comprise addressing and the digital printing of blog posts compiled individually for the addressee.
4. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that the identification means are selected from the group comprising: i) identification means directly applied on or to the printed product; ii) identification means which are associated with the printed product detachably, temporarily and in direct physical proximity; and iii) identification means in the form of an electronic identification code in a higher-level control device, the code with the support of software making an association for each printed product in the production process in relation to the processing stations used in the process.
5. A method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that an ID tag (4, 4') is printed directly onto a printed product in the printing form-bound high-performance printing process or directly thereafter in a digital printing method, and a label imprinted with an ID tag or an electronically readable or a readable and writable electronic memory is applied to the printed product.
6. The method according to claim 5, characterized in that each ID tag (4, 4') of a product is provided with product-specific control information (31-36), which can be read by sensors of at least one processing device (7-12) and thus directly controls the processing of the respective product by this at least one processing device (7-12).
7. A method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that, in the course of a conveying section (3), the product to be created is customized by the addressee-specific compilation of a selection of conventional produced sub-products and the addition of at least one further addressee-specific digital printed product.
8. The method according to claim 7, characterized in that the at least one addressee-specific digital printed product comprises blog posts, preferably in the form of a blog attachment.
9. A method according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 8, characterized in that the product sequence, in the course of the conveying section, at least in some sections comprises a recurring succession in each case of an addressee-specifically semi-customized intermediate product and at least one, preferably more, non-customized standard intermediate products.
10. A method according to any one of the preceding claims 1 to 8, characterized in that, in the course of the conveying section, the product sequence at least in some sections comprises a recurring succession in each case of a plurality of addressee-specifically semi-customized intermediate products and at least one, preferably more, non-customized standard intermediate products.
11. The method according to claim 9 or 10, characterized in that, in the event of missing addressee-specifically semi-customized intermediate products, an addressee-specific customization step to be performed is carried out on a subsequent non-customized intermediate product and the same is thus turned into the partially faulty customized address-specific intermediate product.
12. The method according to claim 11, characterized in that the partially faulty customized address-specific intermediate products or such end products are provided with a piece of information that is directed at the addressee, preferably in the form of a digital overprint or a sticker or a MEMOSTICK® note, relating to the faulty product.
13. A method according to any one of claims 6 to 12, characterized in that the ID tag (4, 4') is preferably designed as a machine-readable two-dimensional or matrix bar code.
14. A method according to any one of the preceding claims 5 to 13, characterized in that the addressee-specific compilation is controlled solely by the information contained in an ID tag (4, 4'), without direct control statements from a higher-level control system.
15. A system comprising means for carrying out a method according to any one of the aforementioned claims.

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