New Press And Platesetter Biggest Investment Yet

A B Dick has installed the first Hamada 252-AI two-colour press with a Presstek Dimension 200 platesetter in Scotland at McGilvrays Printers.

A B Dick has installed the first Hamada 252-AI two-colour press with a Presstek Dimension 200 platesetter in Scotland at McGilvrays Printers.

The Kirkcaldy (Fife) company was the subject of a management buy-out in 2000 by Teresa Henderson and George Milne.

"We realised that investment was needed to update the company (which has its origins back in 1885) in order to grow the business and meet customers' demands.

The press and the CTP system are by far our biggest investment to date," commented Henderson.

McGilvrays has for many years run out film on an imagesetter and made plates conventionally.

"We still plan to keep the imagesetter because we run out film for a number of local printers.

However, we were subcontracting at least 50 per cent of our colour work and as this area of the business is expanding, we realised that we had to address the situation.

It was our football and ice hockey programmes that brought the matter to a head.

One of our main jobs from mid August through to the late spring is printing programmes for football, ice hockey and rugby clubs," she explained.

"We knew that this year they wanted the football programmes printed full colour and there is a good chance that the ice hockey clubs will do likewise.

As we have to plan, print and finish them in just three days, we realised that it would be impossible to make the plates conventionally and print them in four colours on our two colour Heidelberg and single colour Ryobi presses.

Our planned investment would be a CTP system.

We looked at four different suppliers before deciding to buy the Presstek Dimension 200," added Henderson.

She explained that the company liked the chemistry free concept and that it was important to be as environmentally friendly as possible, whilst having an advantage that would help to bring in new business.

A B Dick was able to offer McGilvrays a very good deal by offering both the Dimension with the Hamada 252-AI press, which was on the stand at Drupa.

"We are able to output plates at least 75 per cent faster than before, which makes a big difference to our throughput.

We know that when the first football programme of the season arrived that we would turn it round with confidence," said co-partner George Milne.

"But it's the quality that has made the difference.

Working with first generation plates on a brand new two-colour AI press has given us a big improvement in quality.

The plates perform excellently on press and the make ready is extremely quick.

We only need to run a few sheets and we are up to colour, whilst the AI function ensures accurate colour matching.

Should we have any problems, we know that A B Dick is there to support us and give advice," he added.

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