Ambitious Printers Get 'State of the Art' with Heidelberg Technology

“My expectations were high,” said Joey Sogluizzo, plant manager for Riverside Printing in Rocky Mount, NC, of the Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 52 5-color with coater the company installed in March. His requirements for a press that would enable Riverside to produce high-quality, short-run color conventionally were straightforward: “I wanted this press to achieve quick makeready, producing a sellable sheet much faster and more economically, and be able to do so consistently.”

In full production for four months now, the Speedmaster SM 52 has more than proven its mettle in every regard. “The press did what Heidelberg promised it would do,” Sogluizzo said. “Not only have we established a niche in the regional market for short-run, small-format color, but we now can make more productive and efficient use of our 40-inch equipment,” on which Riverside had been running some of its short-run color work. Riverside’s press operators reportedly love the SM 52’s fast, easy makeready, and Sogluizzo praises the high-end quality of the printing itself, which he contrasts with the “pleasing color” available with comparable digital machines.

Elsewhere in its 60,000-square-foot facility, Riverside operates two Heidelberg Printmaster QM 46-2s, together with Heidelberg cylinder and windmill presses for die cutting and scoring. The company provides commercial printing, die cutting, folding and gluing, and mailing and fulfillment services to a regional client base located in and around Greenville, Raleigh, Roanoke Rapids and Halifax, NC. Its 50 full-time employees boast an average 15 years’ experience in the printing industry.

Quality, speed, and efficiency: the Speedmaster SM 52.

Thomson-Shore Cuts Costs, Boosts Quality with Speedmaster SM 102 Perfector

Book manufacturer Thomson-Shore, Inc., Dexter, MI improved its capacity by 10 percent as soon as it replaced an existing Speedmaster 74 4-color press with a brand-new Speedmaster SM 102 6-color perfector. That was just the beginning. According to Carl Trisdale, press/prepress manager, the new press also has enabled Thomson-Shore to reduce the number of shifts running four-color process work from four to as few as one, and to produce in-house the four-color text and insert jobs it had previously (and expensively) farmed out. At the same time, Trisdale reported, the company’s average production speed has improved by 100 percent, along with its productivity on four-color covers and jackets.

“Covers and jackets we used to run at 150 line screen we now run at 300 line screen and the colors just pop,” Trisdale said. “We’ve even fingerprinted our older press (a Speedmaster SM 74 perfector) to the new Speedmaster.” The company also has a two-color Speedmaster SM 102.

Trisdale is hard-pressed to name just one feature of the new machine that pleases him the most, although he cites the Speedmaster’s mark-free perfecting as a “big advantage,” along with the seamless interaction of the Press Center console and nonstop Preset Plus feeder that adjusts automatically to format and printing stock.

Following “one of the easiest, fastest startups ever,” Thomson-Shore’s operators were trained and running within three weeks, and running production numbers within two months, Trisdale said. “The operators are excited about new opportunities for our company with the additional flexibility the new six color press has to offer.”

An expert book manufacturer, Thomson-Shore prints and binds both perfect bound (paper back or soft cover) and case bound books for university presses, religious institutions and many trade publishers, with a specialty in short- to medium run volumes. The company, which has been in business for 37 years, employs a workforce of 260 and is employee owned.

For a profile of the Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102, click here.

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