Didde Web--Comeback in Kansas

(Editor's Note: Emporia, KS-based Didde Web Press has reinvented itself during the past two years by developing new web press models designed for the direct mail and commercial markets. In a one-on-one interview, David Thompson, president, tells us how.)

PI: What's new with Didde Web Press?

Thompson: Didde Web Press has a rich tradition in the industry, with more than 45 years of history and over 7,000 narrow web presses installed around the world. This represents more installations than all of our competitors combined.

Over the past two years, Didde Web Press has quietly completed an entire transformation of the company, changing to high speed, variable and perfecting presses, which offer advanced, state-of-the-art control systems. These products draw upon proven technology from Didde's previous experiences in the perfecting market, as well as new technologies in the industry. This transformation is now complete, with the new technology commercially proven in the marketplace at multiple installations.

PI: What markets are these new products targeting and what customer needs are they trying to address?

Thompson: These products were specifically designed to meet the ever-increasing needs of the direct mail market, as well as mid-to-large size commercial printers. The direct mail industry is continually demanding increased print quality at sheetfed quality levels with high speed, consistent UV production and minimal makeready time. These finished products are typically produced at more than 1,000 feet per minute in roll-to-roll, roll-to-fold and roll-to-sheet applications, with downstream personalization for direct mail.

Didde has introduced two brand new products for this marketplace. The first is called the Viper, designed for 1,000 feet per minute, which enables customers with installed VIP presses to leverage their capital investment in inserts and to optimize the flexibility of sizes the press is capable of producing. This press will produce outstanding print quality at high speeds with UV applications, incorporating technology from Didde's Colortech platform.

Didde has also introduced a new BIC (Best in Class) 315 press, which runs up to 1,500 feet per minute, utilizing the proven Didde commercial print quality inker design. These presses offer the highest speed in the industry for narrow web applications utilizing UV and heatset capabilities. The BIC 315 press is available in a wide variety of cylinder sizes and widths up to 27˝.

Didde products have long been recognized as cost-effective and highly productive. The BIC continues that tradition with features facilitating the production of direct mail work at the lowest cost per thousand.

Didde has also introduced the next generation web perfecting press, after having been in the perfecting marketplace for 20 years. This new product was designed utilizing state-of-the-art design tools, providing enormous flexibility in format size to enable our customers to optimize paper usage and minimize paper waste. The product utilizes an electronic line shaft and offers a wide variety of finishing solutions.

The Excalibur perfector enables commercial printers to divert work with run lengths of 5,000 and above from their sheetfed presses and run them on a perfector with economic production advantages of 10 percent to 25 percent. This is the key to enabling commercial printers to significantly improve bottom-line earnings.

All of these products are being sold in customized configurations to provide specialized solutions to our customers' needs. Didde is unique in this capability, with 500 years of in-house engineering experience, combined with vertically integrated manufacturing capabilities, to control quality at every step of the process.

PI: How is Didde accomplishing this transformation?

Thompson: Didde Web Press has again taken our proven in-house and industry-wide technology and applied it to the unique needs of each customer. We have completed extensive testing of all three new products to validate their performance. Finally, we have worked closely with certain select customers around the country who have these new products in production 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and who are available to provide demonstrations of the new equipment.

In addition to the product development activities, we also have completely restructured our organization to focus our efforts on those activities our customers value, through a process orientation that has been proven in other industries. A specific example of that is Didde's highly recognized customer service organization, with factory-trained service engineers around the country available to provide "bumper-to-bumper" support throughout the installation and warranty periods. We also are offering preventive maintenance programs to our customers throughout the life of their presses. These mechanical, electrical and applications capabilities make us unique in being able to help our customers optimize the return they achieve from their investments.

PI: What's next in Didde's development horizon?

Thompson: Concurrent with the product developments discussed earlier, Didde is exploring three emerging new technology areas that we believe will bring great value to traditional web offset printers. As these technologies become commercially viable, we will utilize a similar approach to that discussed earlier, working with a select group of customers to validate the technology and production economics.

We look forward to sharing the results with the industry in the not-too-distant future.