Printers Install Heidelberg Solutions to Expand Their Business Prospects

KENNESAW, GA—March 6, 2012—Heidelberg has announced the following prepress, press and postpress product installations:

Cavanaugh Press Eyes Short-Run, High-Quality Market with Speedmaster SM 52

Cavanaugh Press in Baltimore has added a new Speedmaster SM 52 five-color press with aqueous coater and Prinect Easy Control measurement and color control system for quality assurance to their arsenal of Heidelberg sheetfed presses. The new machine—already running six days at 12-hours per day—increases Cavanaugh’s pressroom capacity and equips the company to enter the market for very short-run, high-quality offset printing, including high-speed color printing of envelopes.

“It was a pleasant surprise to find that the feeder on the SM 52 fed envelopes at up to 15,000 per hour without a third-party stacker/feeder,” said Bob Atwell, Cavanaugh’s president. “We now routinely do 100,000 runs in full color without the need for time consuming conversion of flat sheets.”

The company’s first small-format press joins a lineup that already includes a two-color Speedmaster SM 102 perfector, a six-color Speedmaster SM 102 with coater, and a six-color Speedmaster XL 105, installed in 2007. On the front end, Heidelberg’s Prinect Prepress Manager JDF-based prepress workflow forms a seamless interface with the company’s MIS and powers an environmentally friendly thermal Suprasetter 105 platesetter used to image Heidelberg Saphira plates.

“Heidelberg’s complete workflow integration affords us an opportunity to makeready to proof matching color on press in 15 minutes, including auto-plating,” Atwell explained. “All color is then stored for reprints in perpetuity. The main benefit is having perfect plates that fit, consistent color densities, and no requirement to have to assign work to a certain press just because it ran there the last time. The guesswork has been eliminated from this amazing, time-saving workflow.”

“We anticipate the SM-52 to grow sales to existing clients, and step into markets we previously could not compete in with only 40˝ equipment. The return on investment for us will be a closer relationship with existing clients, along with growing into new business. We have already seen dozens of jobs that we never would have earned in a few short weeks of production.”

Established in 1983 and with annual sales of $10 million, privately owned and operated Cavanaugh Press provides state-of-the-art, comprehensive print and mail capabilities with an emphasis on dedication to cutting edge technology and top-flight customer service. Key markets include a variety of financial, educational, association and Fortune 500 clients. The company employs a staff of 70.

Great Atlantic Graphics Installs Speedmaster XL 105 Perfector, Brings Small-Format Folding Capability In-House

Great Atlantic Graphics, headquartered in Malvern, PA, recently completed the installation of its second Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105 press, this one a four-color perfector. The company also installed a Stahlfolder Ti52 continuous-feed, two-station small-format folder with vertical and stream deliveries in its sister facility, located in King of Prussia, PA.

According to Vince Giarrocco, controller, the twin installations will enable Great Atlantic to print and fold a variety of product information sheets (PIS) for clients in the pharmaceutical and educational markets.

“We are extremely happy with the performance of our new XL 105, which easily handles the very thin papers used for pharmaceutical inserts at very high speeds,” Giarrocco said. “Prior to these installations, we had been outsourcing work of this kind. Having brought this capability in-house, we have retrieved a much-needed measure of control over the costs, scheduling and quality requirements related to the production of these product information sheets. As a result, we fully expect to achieve a substantial return on our investment sooner rather than later.”

He added that the ability to perfect will lend the company one-pass productivity as the market for PIS increasingly moves to two-color work.

The company also operates a Speedmaster XL 105 (six-color), a Speedmaster CD 102 six-color, 54˝ and 45˝ Polar cutters, plus 30˝ and 23˝ Stahlfolders.

Great Atlantic specializes in high-quality, multi-color sheetfed commercial printing for clients in the advertising, consumer goods, educational and pharmaceutical markets. The company also offers package design, scanning, prepress, retouching, printing and finishing expertise, as well as fulfillment, mailing and digital asset management, takes pride in its ability to deliver end-to-end service to its customers. FSC and SFI-certified, Great Atlantic is on track to realize around a 23 percent increase in total volume this year. The company employs a combined staff of 80 in its Malvern and King of Prussia facilities.

Two Polar Cutters Keep Pace with Relentless Workload at Print Harmony

Print Harmony is a 100 percent web-based printer to the trade whose business places a premium on high-quality and 24-hour turnaround. The company reports that the installation of two new Polar paper cutters in its Clearwater, FL, location will help the company keep pace with the rising demand for its services and compete effectively with larger trade service providers.

The Polar 115 Xplus and Polar 115 XT machines join four existing Polar cutters in use across Print Harmony’s operation, which also includes a sister plant in Easton, PA. Both facilities are all-Heidelberg shops running multiple half-size and small-format Heidelberg presses, assorted Stahlfolders and versatile KAMA diecutting equipment.

According to General Manager Jake Travis, patented Polar firepower was an absolute must for Print Harmony, given the fact that the company “typically [performs] more than 100 cuts on each of our gang-run, multiple-up, UV-coated sheets containing a mix of postcards, business cards and brochures, etc. We needed reliable, heavy-duty cutters that could stand up to a punishing pace. Polar is our go-to cutter for the type and volume of the work we do.”

Print Harmony’s customers include printers, photographers, graphic designers, mail houses, print brokers, advertising agencies, sign companies, and other resellers of print and direct mail nationwide. The company employs a combined staff of 85 in Florida and Pennsylvania.

“Based on the razor-thin margins that characterize our business, we have to invest in the fastest, most highly automated, most efficient, most reliable equipment available,” Travis said, citing the company’s 30 percent year-to-year growth since its founding in 2002: “Heidelberg technology definitely helps us compete more effectively.”

Winchester Printers Gets More Done in Less Time at Lower Cost with Ricoh Pro C901

While shopping for a new digital press, Winchester Printers (Winchester, VA) set its sights on a machine that would enable the company to get more done more quickly, with less maintenance, lower click charges, and more uptime than its previous machine. Its eventual choice was a Heidelberg-supplied, Ricoh Pro C901 with inline saddlestitcher and color management via Prinect Color Toolbox, which not only lends the company consistent color consistency from job to job, but also puts the operation on a sustainable path in terms of click charges, monthly maintenance and other costs.

“Our overhead used to be a killer; we had to charge so much on longer runs to stay profitable that we couldn’t compete effectively,” said Chris Hottle, vice president. “Are there a few unique applications we used to do that we can’t do now, and are we somewhat limited in terms of substrate thickness? Yes, but those jobs were very few and far between. The difference is more than made up in lower costs and faster job changeovers.

The Ricoh Pro C901’s inline finishing capability means that certain jobs can bypass the company’s bindery altogether on the way to the customer, enabling Winchester to meet tight delivery deadlines. One recent job, for example, called for the overnight production of a short-run of 20-page saddlestitched booklets. “A rush job like that would have been impossible to complete the work on time with our previous digital press, which lacked inline finishing,” Hottle said.

“The Ricoh is a workhorse press that handles digital jobs quickly, and produces high-quality work with a minimum of downtime,” Hottle concluded. “We use it for anything and everything that fits—from business cards to postcards and booklets— including helping us with scheduling during busy times when our offset presses are all loaded up. At the end of the day we’re going to be more profitable with the Ricoh Pro than we were before.”

The company’s equipment lineup includes 40˝, 29˝ and small-format Heidelberg offset presses, a 45˝ POLAR programmable guillotine cutter, a Heidelberg Stitchmaster ST100 8-pocket saddlestitcher with stacker, and a 65˝ Rastek wide-format inkjet printer, which represents a growing market for the company. On the front end, Heidelberg’s Prepress Manager workflow powers a Suprasetter 105 with Autoloader, used to image Saphira Chemfree plates. Winchester Printers also takes advantage of Saphira inks and coatings in the pressroom.

Third-generation, family run Winchester Printers is a full-service commercial printer whose clients include businesses, universities, organizations, and associations throughout Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Northern Virginia, as well as Washington, DC and parts of Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

“We understand print, and we have the capabilities and expertise to put that understanding to work for our customers,” Hottle said. “Many of our key employees have been with the company for 20-plus years. We know how to get things done.”

Graphicolor Printing Bids Goodbye to Bindery Bottleneck with New Polar 78 X Cutter

Graphicolor Printing, a small-format commercial printer in New Berlin, WI, recently installed a 30˝ Polar 78 X high-speed guillotine cutter for four-up formats to increase capacity and relieve a bottleneck caused by an increase in job volume.

“Our volume is up, yes, but we were working one-and-a-half shifts on our existing cutter and were unable to keep up with production,” said company president Mike Huebner. “As a result, jobs took longer to complete, and it was getting tight meeting our delivery times. On top of that, we were paying a lot in overtime.”

The new POLAR 78 X, used primarily for finished work, has solved Graphicolor’s bottleneck problem completely while providing short setup times and high cutting precision. The company retains a five-year-old 36˝ Polar 92 X primarily to cut and trim parent sheets.

“Thanks to eliminating the backlogs, we’re running more efficiently than ever,” Huebner said.

The company’s prepress workflow powers a Heidelberg Suprasetter 52 used to image Heidelberg Saphira Chemfree plates for its Speedmaster 52 5-color and Printmaster QM 46 two-color presses. Graphicolor also offers a range of digital services, including black-and-white and color digital printing, VDP and wide-format inkjet. Elsewhere in the shop, a Heidelberg cylinder press is still used for die cutting and some scoring.

In business for 11 years, Graphicolor Printing prides itself on being a mid-sized company with resources comparable to those of its larger competitors, while remaining small and nimble enough the adapt to the needs and preferences of individual clients. Serving a variety of customers nationwide, the company employs a staff of 20.

Source: Heidelberg.