O Globo Communications Group is an international media chain. O Globo was formed in 1925 as a daily paper. It is the largest newspaper in Latin America and one of the ten largest companies in Brazil.
Over sixty-five years, the work done at the daily newspaper has been extended and diversified as the communications requirements of the modern world have become more sophisticated and demanding. The O Globo daily newspaper is the leading newspaper in Rio de Janeiro and has a print run of 300,000 copies on working days and 400,000 on Sundays. This makes it the newspaper with the widest readership in Brazil.
During our visit, we were provided a lecture and a tour of the facility. O Globo has a printing facility that ranks among the most modern on the continent. The futuristic impressive architecture of the facility was designed and constructed by a German architectural firm. The facility unites functionality with modern design. A state-of-the-art natural gas plant ensures an independent power supply and all areas of the building are air-conditioned. SAP (the integrated management system) was installed during the modernization project. This is the first such system installed in a printing plant outside of Germany.
O Globo uses sophisticated robotics and IT in all of their operations. They are proud of the new pressroom equipment. Several GEOMAN press lines were installed in a row to triple printing capacity and to get more color in the publications. Up to 50% of the pages can now be printed in four colors. With an annual large consumption of paper that is imported from Canada, materials handling logistics represented a special challenge. This was solved by using fully-automated robotic machines that glide along the printing production path to scan barcodes to recognize the need for additional paper to complete the various printing jobs. The paper is then hoisted by the robot and placed in the loading area where technology is used again to load the roll of paper onto the press. They also have an impressive disaster recovery plan.
Infoglobo, a company within the O Globo group is responsible not only for print media but also for Internet publishing and is active in the New Media area. With this comprehensive modernization and expansion project completed, the firm can face the future with confidence. The company?s technical director is certain that reader potential will grow strongly in Brazil in the next few years. With the print capacity now available, the company has aligned its resources to meet this growing demand and also created the prerequisites for ensuring that there are more chapters to come in the O Globo success story.
Robot locates rolls of paper, picks them up and loads
them on the printers.