Beechmont Press — The Ink Inquisition

You say your shop wants to improve reproduction quality to land more high-end work, but you're not sure you can afford it? Well, the people at Beechmont Press, a mid-sized, Louisville, KY-based printer, say you probably can't afford not to.

After making a firm commitment to quality improvement, Beechmont put its production methods and materials under the microscope, and managed, quite profitably, to capture its own high-end slice of the market.

Beginning with the obvious, Beechmont management focused on equipment. They installed a five-color, 40˝ Speedmaster, and they gave their conventional prepress an electronic makeover. But along with high-performance equipment purchases, they developed a simple theory: No matter how great a machine was supposed to be, the management team reasoned, if it wasn't running with top-notch materials, then reproduction quality would still be compromised.

Well, what else to do with a theory, but test it? That's exactly what Beechmont did.

Instead of buying consumables on reputation or price alone, the company spent some time and money performing tests on them. Methods varied—some tests were tightly controlled, all-day affairs, others simply involved occasional switches between competing products.

The results? Beechmont not only improved reproduction quality and attracted work it never could before, but the company decreased operating costs, too.

Here's how Beechmont's management team discovered that testing can really pay...and why other printers should, too.

Owners Dennis and David Watkins recount Beechmont's early, less quality-obsessed days, describing how their father Dale founded the company as a supplemental hobby—one that supplemented the family's kitchen table, that is.

In 1961, Dale Watkins bought a 73-year-old letterpress and operated it in his garage, producing grocery store handbills in exchange for—what else?—groceries! With the help of his wife and sons, the operation grew steadily and soon began receiving cash for its services.

Today, Beechmont is a thriving, three-shift operation boasting $16 million in annual sales, 140 employees and several Heidelbergs—a pair of two-color 40˝ units; two four-color units, one 25˝ and one 28˝; and two five-color units, a 29˝ and a 40˝.

In the last eight years, Beechmont's appetite for high-quality work has grown, along with increasing offers for exactly those kinds of jobs. One commercial broker, in particular, kept tempting the printer with such higher quality projects, but try as they may, the Beechmont team couldn't produce them.

What printing gremlin lurked within the production line? Plant Manager Steve Stahl summarizes the problem: "We got a lot of grief over dot gain—we couldn't get it any better than 30 percent, so we couldn't match color proofs."

When an ink vendor, who was courting the printer's business, claimed that his product could decrease that dot gain dramatically, Beechmont's production team smiled, then asked the vendor to prove it. A preliminary test indicated that inks from Superior Printing Ink could deliver the necessary dot-gain reduction. Excited, Beechmont allocated some press time for a formal test.

Beechmont conducted a double-blind process print test with GATF guidelines and materials. Production Manager Gary Bohannon explains: "We had three cans labeled A, B and C, and only Steve Stahl and Pressroom Manager Chris Easton, knew which inks were which."

Along with dot gain, they tested trapping, gray balance, rub and fade resistance, setting and drying speeds, and gloss. Superior's ink excelled in several performance categories and, as promised, reduced the dot gain significantly. Those quantified test results helped Superior reach primary-vendor position on Beechmont's shelves.

For that Bohannon is thankful, because since then he has noticed other printability benefits the ink offers. For example, Beechmont's high-speed press runs generate considerable heat, something that had been causing ink tack to break down and sabotage the delicate ink/water balance. Since using

Superior's ink, Beechmont has had no such problems. "If somebody's looking at expensive coolers to put on their press," Bohannon cautions, "they might want to look at their ink first—it could be a lot cheaper."

Balancing Act
But what good is a good ink if it's mixing with bad water? Not as good as it could be, which is why Beechmont has been testing fountain solutions and related systems all along.

"Years ago we used tap water, then for about 10 years, we used 'DI' [de-ionized] water," says Stahl. Beechmont tried several different solutions during that period, usually based on recommendations. But as Bohannon points out, "Whatever solution the guy down the street was running on his Heidelberg didn't necessarily work well on ours."

With the help of its longtime supplier, Varn International, Beechmont finally conquered its biggest solution woe—variations in water hardness. It seems when autumn leaves accumulate in the Ohio River, so do pollutants and particulates in the water supply. To combat the resulting hardness variations, Varn installed an "RO" (reverse osmosis) water system that removes, as Stahl says, "bacteria, particles—everything. The system even includes a post-treatment filter that put elements beneficial to the printing process back into the water before it's mixed. It's the ultimate printing water."

Sometimes product trials are precipitated by changes far beyond the local climate. Like, say, the changes brewing in distant business climates that will soon affect Beechmont's plate purchases.

"Because of an acquisition between manufacturers," Stahl explains, "we're being forced to change a type of plate." To head off any integration problems with the new plate, Beechmont is already drawing up plans for a test involving products from at least three major plate manufacturers.

Ultimately, Beechmont intends to continue material testing because of the healthy impact it's had on the company's bottom line. Since undertaking the high-quality push eight years ago, business has boomed, and Beechmont's product mix has almost completely reversed—commercial work is up from about 20 percent to nearly 60 percent. Using higher quality products has also improved efficiency, helping Beechmont come in under budget last year.

So can this kind of quality commitment pay off for everyone?

Bohannon concedes that tight production schedules and operating costs can scare people off and make the process difficult. Still, he contends, "If shutting down a press for a while means finding a product that's ideal for your shop, then odds are you'll make up that lost time."

Which is exactly what Beechmont has done.