By Gordon Carson

Yell used the official opening of RR Donnelleys new directory printing plant in Flaxby Moor, Yorkshire, to confirm its plans to roll out full-colour printing of the Yellow Pages directory.
The firm would not reveal the date it planned to convert all directories to the process, or the regions it would use to launch the product, but it is expected that it will take place in the autumn.
Yell business process director John Satchwell said that when the firm started contemplating the move to full-colour it decided to continue working with Donnelley due to the relationship it had established with the printer since the formation of their partnership in 1979.
From January onwards the progress that has been made is outstanding, he said. Yell has been trialing full-colour directories in Dundee, Bournemouth and Taunton since the start of the year (PrintWeek, ? January).
RR Donnelley president and chief executive Bill Davis said the Flaxby Moor plant was a culmination of all the things we have been working on. It is being used as a model for a plant the group is planning for Shanghai.
Division director Roy Houston said he was so proud of all the staff who had helped in the move from York to Flaxby Moor.
The official opening of the plant was attended by representatives from the plants two main directory customers, Yell and KPN TeleMedia, the Dutch national telecommunications provider. RR Donnelley has been printing four-colour directories for KPN for over two years. It requires 9m directories for 50 different regions each year, and its contract with Donnelley runs to 2005.
Davis said he believed that those telecoms companies pulling out of their traditional publishing markets, like BT did with Yell, were making a mistake by not recognising the value of their publishing businesses.
For Yell it is probably a very good thing because the new owner really cares about it, he added.
The Flaxby Moor plant houses five 64pp heatset presses four MAN Roland Unisets and a Goss Universal that was transferred from York. The factory can produce 4.2m 64pp sections in a 24-hour period. Covers and inserts are printed on a five-colour MAN Roland 700 with inline coater, which also came from York.
The 300m-long plant, which employs 320 staff and works 24 hours a day, six days a week, also uses a line of sight manufacturing system that the group believes is unique in the global printing industry.