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Product category: Printing Presses and Machinery (New and Used, Service and Repair)
News Release from: Komori UK | Subject: Komori Lithrone S40 press and coater
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial Team on 01 February 2008

Komori Colour Consistency Ousts
Heidelberg Presses

Two Heidelberg presses have been replaced by a five-colour Komori Lithrone S40 press and coater as part of a GBP2 million investment in the latest press, repro and finishing equipment.

According to Komori UK, Redmond Graphics were impressed by the Lithrone S40's performance during tests Redmond's managing director, Maurice Champion, arranged demonstrations with a number of press manufacturers during an 18-month planning process to ensure that all new equipment could produce the optimum results

Alongside the new B1 press, Redmond Graphics has invested in a new guillotine, folders and stitching line and spent GBP200,000 on pre-press and repro systems.

The company specialises in specialist finishing and offers a design service, variable data personalisation and a direct mail operation.

Maurice Champion explained: "We needed a press that could make-ready and print consistently from one image to the next and achieve the exact colours our customers need each and every time.

We insisted on demonstrations, which replicated work conditions and gave a number of manufacturers the same demanding jobs.

That process included seven different high quality posters using the same reflex blue.

By lunchtime the Komori press had done all seven jobs and the spectrophotometer had got the ink to the right blue within 30 sheets." He added: "The press does exactly what Komori says it does, during the testing it didn't mark or track and the smoothness was perfect.

This, accompanied with our FSC and PEFC accreditations, ensures we are responding proactively to our customers' needs and increasingly high corporate social responsibility standards." Redmond Graphics group incorporates several printing companies.

Husband and wife team Maurice and Cathy Champion have achieved expansion year on year, enjoying growth over the past five years.

The group turned over GBP3 million last year and has a portfolio of 600 customers, including Nottingham Forest Football Club, Office Depot, Vision Express and Derbyshire Building Society.

Work ranges from short run luxury brochures to stationery, business cards, direct mail and reward cards, as well as specialist finishing, including gluing and die cutting.

Komori said that Redmond Graphics is used to working to tight deadlines and fast turn-around times.

The company prints all of Nottingham Forest's football programmes with the artwork arriving on Thursday to be turned around ready for the match on Saturday.

Redmond Graphics also supplies Derbyshire Building Society and acts as a stock control and distribution service, as well as printing its brochures and POS material.

A few years ago the lead time on one of those jobs would have been a week but today Redmond's receives the file on Tuesdays and the printed material is in branches all over the UK before each weekend.

Champion continued: "Our press operators love the spectrophotometer, which has changed the way we make-ready.

For a small family run business it is morale boosting to be using state of the art technology.

We upgraded the Komori six colour B2 press to KMS4 to improve make-ready and ensure compatibility.

The plates are automatically punched, it takes 10 minutes to amend plates from repro and they're back on the press in another 10 minutes." He added: "Ad hoc improvements can be made easily now we have this level of automation.

Our new plant list has been chosen after thorough research to reduce handling and manpower.

The new press runs alcohol-free, heats part of the direct mail room through special vents and it will greatly increase productivity and remove finishing bottlenecks.

Now that we are FSC and PFEC accredited the whole process is very appealing to customers required to produce print with the environment best protected at an affordable cost." And he explained that the Komori buying process ran very smoothly, with achievable installation plans that worked fantastically.

In addition, the finance process was flexible and seamless and everyone representing Komori was helpful and full of facts.

Steve Turner, Komori's general sales manager for the northern UK, commented: "I think that when Maurice first showed us the print tests he wanted to see on the LS40 he was fairly sure that none of the presses under consideration would be capable of reaching the exact colour match quickly and efficiently.

The Komori KHS pre-inking and de-inking system performed just as we had described it would, achieving colour in a few sheets, job after job. Request a free brochure from Komori UK ...

KHS proves time and again, both in demonstrations and in numerous production situations, that make-ready waste can be reduced to the absolute minimum, a pre-requisite for improving margins and reducing the environmental impact of the printing process.".

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