Tukaiz--"Not Just Prepress Anymore!"
BY CHERYL A. ADAMS
"If you want to know where you're going, you have to know where you've been," says Frank Defino Sr., president and CEO of Tukaiz Communications—a man who is not only aware of his company's history, but has been instrumental in its making. Having been at the helm of the Tukaiz ship for the past 36 years, Defino has guided the firm through a sea of transition—from traditional prepress services to full-service, digital and commercial printing.
However, Defino prefers that the Franklin Park, IL-based Tukaiz be called a "digital media communications company" or an "electronic digital media specialist." He also emphasizes that Tukaiz "is not just a printer. Printing is just another service we wanted to offer our customers."
And those same customers were instrumental in Tukaiz' transition to commercial printing.
"You Can Do It!"
"Our customers said, 'We know you can do it. You already have the quality. Why don't you just print it?' So we did," says Lisa Saul, Tukaiz' director of marketing. "We've always been known for our quality prepress work and for using leading-edge technology. Our customers were confident in our use of technology and our quality.
"We have always been strong in corporate and agency work, producing advertisements, POPs, etc. Now we are going strong with corporate agencies and manufacturing firms that are looking for single-source suppliers," Saul continues. "Good partnerships have developed with new customers due to those partnerships with existing customers."
Tukaiz, or rather Defino, first had the vision of transitioning into commercial printing in the mid-1980s, when the company was contemplating becoming a graphic arts center.
"To be full service and accompany our high-end systems, we brought in Macs," says Defino. "We were also heavily involved in multimedia products, specifically an interactive product, a sing-and-learn book and tape, which is sold in Walmart stores worldwide."
From multimedia to new product development (including graphic image managment and Website design), Tukaiz saw the transition from prepress to printing as a "natural progression."
Natural for Tukaiz maybe. For other commercial printers, the "normal" progression would be the other way around—first providing the printed product, then adding electronic prepress services.
"The idea for diversification, to become full service, started in the early 1990s," says Defino. "Digital photography and digital printing were just being introduced then. As a prepress house, we understood what was involved—we had the personnel who could understand the conversions that were necessary. We had the experience with color balance and digital workflow that allowed us to make the trans-ition/evolution to direct-to-plate.
"Our infrastructure allowed us to do this easily and seamlessly," Defino adds. "We took the digital path to printing by adding two Indigo presses in September 1994 and a third in January 1996."
All-digital Workflow
Having an all-digital workflow was the basis of Tukaiz' transition to commercial printing.
"We were already doing front-end digital proofing," explains Saul, "so it was something that we understood from the beginning, that is, the digital path to the press."
According to Defino, high-end commercial printing has the enhancement to be able to take on digital plates and digital proofing, plus it has the ability to print on exotic substrates: plastic, polystyrene, static cling, vinyl, backlit, etc.
Tukaiz is able to print on different substrates using its new six-color, 40˝ Heidelberg Speedmaster CD with tower coater, and UV and aqueous capabilities. The press was installed in February, and it has been running nonstop ever since.
"The Heidelberg CD enables us to print thicker materials that will go through without jamming the press," explains Bob Dombrowski, Tukaiz' sales executive and resident print expert. "We've been testing the whole time we've been printing, and we've been using lots of different substrates: styrene, opaque plastics, Kimdura and rigid vinyl for POP materials. We're now running tests on fluted materials for the packaging industry.
"We touch on a lot of businesses—commercial, packaging and POP," Dombrowski explains. "We wanted that kind of flexibility with one press. Our company has diversified, so we needed a press that would address all of those areas. We went with a Heidelberg."
Using its state-of-the-art Heidelberg, Tukaiz was also able to integrate a top-of-the-line UV curing system. It chose Grafix North America's award-winning CoCure Process. (Co-Cure won a 1999 GATF InterTech Technology Award.)
While dealing with Heidelberg during its press purchase, Dombrowski says the name Grafix North America (GNA) kept popping up. "Grafix had a very good reputation in the industry for having top quality equipment. We called up a number of printers using Grafix products, and they recommended the company highly."
Dombrowski, along with Defino, believes that UV coating is the coating of the future because, as he puts it, "the amount of gloss that can be seen on the sheet and it's more durable than aqueous." When the pair found out that they could run CoCure inks in-line in one pass, they were sold on the technology.
The CoCure Advantage
"CoCure inks are 30 percent to 40 percent UV," explains Dombrowski. "We can put UV coating on a sheet, and it comes off the press 99 percent dry, so we can put it back through to print on the other side—all in one pass. We print a lot of duratrans, which is the backlit plastic signage that you see at fast food restaurants. With the CoCure process, we can run it through the press, wait 20 minutes, then run it through again. Otherwise, using other processes, it might take hours, even days, to dry. Using CoCure ink and the UV coating, it automatically encapsulates the ink, so that when it comes off the press, it's dry to the touch.
"With the CoCure system, we can UV coat in-line with only one interdeck station, which is between the last printing unit and the coater. By doing that, it sets up the ink and dries it. So when the UV coating is applied, and it goes through the UV lamp, the coating is dried onto the sheet.
"The unique thing is that if we don't want to do UV coating, we can pull out the cartridge and do aqueous coating—all just by changing a cartridge," Dombrowski notes. "There are a lot of benefits to this technology: You can do either UV or aqueous; the sheet gets as much gloss in one pass as it would off-line; and there is a savings in time and money because you don't have to send the job out. Plus, it's more convenient for the customer not to have to deal with multiple vendors."
By offering its customers the CoCure advantage, Tukaiz has further diversified its product offerings with another value-added service. And by constantly expanding its capabilities, Tukaiz is keeping with its (or rather Defino's) original vision: to stay versatile and to stay on top of the latest technology, "which takes some investment and some risk," says Defino.
"This vision encompasses the entire company—being able to take on the challenges of new technology and stay on top of that technology," he explains, noting that this is not one man's vision. "It's our entire team's vision, and the team is taking on the challenge and meeting it. That challenge is to find more solutions for our customers, see what they really need and find the technology that allows us to fulfill those needs."
With eight corporate divisions, Tukaiz is certainly capable of doing just that. Those divisions are: Tukaiz Innovative Prepress; Digital Design & Special Services; Digital Capture; DiGiPrinT; Six-Color Offset Printing; Toucan Studios; SparkLink; and Tukaiz Creative Services.
Not only does Tukaiz—a new contender in the highly competitive digital and commercial printing arena—have this powerful diversification in its corner, but it has another, lesser known, advantage that allows it to compete with the "big boys."
Tukaiz: Competing with The Big Boys? No Sweat!
"We're partnered with a $100 million graphic arts entity, Matthews International, which has three divisions," explains Saul. "One of those is the Graphics Imaging Group, which encompasses offset, flexo, gravure and screen printing; Tukaiz is part of this division. That partnership helps us compete with the big boys."
And boy does Tukaiz compete—to the tune of about $21 million in annual revenues. The breakdown of which is $13 million in prepress-related services and $8 million from a combination of commercial printing, digital printing, multimedia, digital photography and product development (such as the interactive books and tapes).
With this impressive arsenal of communications services (which includes a full-service bindery), Tukaiz is able to enter such new and expanding markets as: high-end image management, the World Wide Web, interactive digital image libraries, prototype packaging and signage, personalized/targeted digital printing, computer-to-plate offset printing, large-film output, e-commerce and audio/video production.
"This is an exciting time for Tukaiz," says Defino. "It's also a trying time for Tukaiz. For example, repurposing or taking digital files and images direct-to-plate or direct-to-press—we're looking at customer bases that accept the technologies we offer, and we bring them in for seminars to show them the digital path. We show them digital asset management and color management, and they see the improvements of the digital path—how it works and what it does."
Digital Hot Button
"Digital is a hot button," Defino contends. "We've migrated to that technology. We're very confident in how it works. We're not just dabbling in it."
Defino says Tukaiz has provided itself with the technology and capacity to grow, and it has the tools it needs for the future.
"We feel we have room to grow," says Defino. "We put in the capacity; we have positioned ourselves for the future. We have the technologies in place and have an excellent core customer base. Plus, we have other customers, new ones, who are looking for solutions and who have seen what we've done for our other core customers. These new customers are catching on, discovering who we are."
Not that Defino is tooting his own horn, because he emphasizes that he's not, but he says Tukaiz is looking at the future, thinking as an aggressive company and moving ahead.
"We don't know all the answers," Defino concludes, "but we're willing to learn, to get the knowledge, the technology and constantly do more. We're willing to take the risk to get ahead in the future. There is so much more to learn, so much more to do. Business is always going to change, and you have to be able to change with it in order to survive. As an aggressive, progressive business, you have to reinvent yourself and take the risks that go along with the ride."
- Companies:
- Heidelberg
- Places:
- Franklin Park