February 1, 2002
Construction not affected by economy
Staff report
          MATTOON -The recent decline in the economy hasn't deterred R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. from continuing with a $48 million expansion project that was announced last May.
         A 110-foot-tall automated storage and retrieval building is being constructed on Donnelley's property near the railroad track and U .S. Route 45. The storage building can hold 16,416 pallets of materials and will account for more than half of the plant's storage space, according to officials at Donnelley.
        The rack system's three automated cranes will store and retrieve loads, and three conveyors will be used to move pallets to and from the automated cranes.
       Donnelley uses a software called Job Status Reporting System to track the thousands of pallets of magazine pages and finished projects stored in the plant. With the addition of the automated storage and retrieval system, two additional software programs - Equipment Control Systems and Material Control System will be used to move loads , through the plant and store and retrieve them in the most efficient way.
       The building is 78 feet wide, 110 feet tall and 410 feet. long. Ground was broken last August for the addition. The company did not release the approximate cost of the building.
       Mild weather has allowed work to proceed on the structure, according to a Donnelley representative. The completion date is set for May.
       The automated storage building is part of Donnelley's expansion project, which was announced last year. During that time, Donnelley representatives said the expansion would create 100 new jobs at the Mattoon plant.
   Donnelley's facility in " Mattoon opened in 1968 and currently employs more than
1,700 people.

Used with permission from Mid-Illinois Newspapers
Publishers of the Mattoon Journal Gazette and the Charleston Times-Courier