Prepress--Hold the Pizza
Papa John's adds flavor to $20 million printing operation via Fujifilm.
When the name Papa John's is mentioned, rarely does the image of a Sumo come to mind. That is, unless the Papa John's in question is the national pizza chain's in-house printing shop. The $20 million printing operation that is a vision of the pepperoni and cheese king now has a Sumo connection.
Enabling the 85 Papa John's Print Services employees, including 14 in the electronic prepress area, to keep up with a demanding workload and to meet tight deadlines, new technology needed to be added to the Louisville, KY-based facility.
So in March of this year, Fujifilm Sumo Luxel F-9000 and FC-5055 imagesetters purchased from Fuji Photo Film USA were brought onto the 32-acre corporate campus that houses the printing and prepress facility. The imagesetters seem to be the perfect toppings for which Papa John's was looking.
"We looked at many different output devices and were undecided, until we saw the Fujifilm Sumo," reports Angela Dooley, prepress manager at Papa John's Print Services. "The Sumo seemed the most user-friendly and its speed was incredible. We purchased both the Fuji Sumo and the Fuji FC-5055 to bolster our prepress productivity. We're now using the FC-5055 primarily for polyester plates for our Papa John's print work, which enabled us to meet our goal of reducing turnaround times from two weeks to 24 hours after the customer signs off on the proof."
The Fujifilm Sumo Luxel F9000 is a large-format, internal-drum recorder, featuring multi-laser technology. The Sumo can produce 29 eight-up punched flats per hour at 2,438 dpi using two lasers. FC-5055 imagesetters boast speeds up to 72˝ per minute at 1,000 dpi.
Papa John's Print Services produces a variety of printed products annually, averaging 2,500 orders per month for the pizza giant's 2,645 franchise and corporate restaurants in 48 states nationally and eight countries.
Print products cooked up at the in-plant facility range from business cards to six-color catalogs. Within any given day, the printing power of Papa John's is producing menus, brochures, catalogs and an assortment of corporate collateral for Papa John's, as well as for a variety of commercial accounts, including General Electric.
Approximately 175 million boxtoppers and 55 million doorhangers are produced annually for the Papa John's restaurants, not to mention stationery, Rolodex cards, table tents and training materials. For the large slice of commercial accounts it serves, customer orders include annual reports, church bulletins, product literature, point-of-purchase displays, posters and calendars.
