Print this pageFor Immediate Release
September 1, 2003
Jehovah’s Witnesses reorganize printing operations
The existing printery at Wallkill, New York, is being renovated and new equipment has been purchased that is slated for installation in the spring of 2004. Furthermore, the printing, binding, and shipping operations in Brooklyn will be moved to Wallkill.
Since 1927, the printery in Brooklyn has produced over one billion books, including Bibles. There is, however, a need to update older printing and binding equipment, some of which is more than 40 years old. The older equipment requires greater maintenance and more manpower to operate. Since the existing facilities in Brooklyn can’t accommodate the 133-foot-long presses, it was determined that current printery operations in Wallkill be expanded to make way for the newer, better equipment.
Lon Schilling, long-time Wallkill resident and a key spokesman for the project, also explains: “The consolidation of the U.S. printery operations at Wallkill is only possible because we recently reorganized our worldwide book production.” Prior to this reorganization, the facilities in Brooklyn produced almost 50 percent of the books used in the Bible education work for which Jehovah’s Witnesses are known worldwide. He continues: “Some of the book production shifted to our printeries in other countries, making better use of their facilities. The use of new, more efficient equipment will make it possible to increase production worldwide with reduced personnel.”
Eventually five branches—Brazil, Britain, Japan, Mexico, and South Africa, will also obtain a new printing press each. The two new high-speed MAN Lithoman rotary web offset presses purchased for Wallkill are capable of producing magazines and book signatures (individual printed sections of a book) at a rate of 90,000 per hour. The new bindery equipment is capable of producing hardcover books and deluxe Bibles at a rate of 120 a minute, and the shipping will be handled more efficiently using a high-rise storage system that allows publications to be stored in less than half the floor space currently used in Brooklyn. These improvements will contribute to a streamlined flow of literature to the 12,000 congregations in the United States.
There are one million Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States. Their primary journal, The Watchtower, has an international circulation of 25,203,000, in 147 languages. It has the largest circulation of any religious journal and is by far the world’s most widely translated magazine.
Contact: J. R. Brown, telephone: (718) 560-5600