Product category:
Printing Presses and Machinery (New and Used, Service and Repair)
News Release from: KBA | Subject: Rapida long perfecting press
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 22 July 2005
Largest Battery Of Long Perfectors In
World
The thousands of annual visitors to Buxton, a holiday spa town in the UK's Peak District National Park, would be slow to label the place as one of the largest magazine printing centres worldwide.
The thousands of annual visitors to Buxton, a holiday spa town in the UK's Peak District National Park, would be slow to label the place as one of the largest magazine printing centres worldwide But less than half a mile from Buxton town centre, behind the facade of an historic 1836 stone building, lies Buxton Press, harnessing the largest battery of Rapida long perfecting presses to be found anywhere in the world
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 9 Feb 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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The Buxton Press partnership with KBA began in 1999 with the installation of an eight-colour Rapida Universal, then a lone German KBA press amongst a clutch of Japanese Komoris and Italian Aurelias.
That was the first KBA long perfector to be installed in the UK.
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The partnership blossomed as an additional KBA press was added every year until Buxton Press became an all-KBA house.
The pressroom now houses four eight-colour Rapida perfectors and one 10-colour perfector supported by three Rapidkut reel sheeters.
Another eight-colour Rapida is being installed this July, bringing the total to six long perfecting presses in six years.
The company's inspirational chairman and chief executive, Bernard Galloway, is the first to admit that his company operates in the toughest printing market in the UK - the printing of contract magazine titles with an average run of 10,000 copies.
It is an operation that has to run flat-out for 24 hours a day, six and a half days a week.
Galloway said: "To succeed in this competitive cauldron Buxton Press has to have a modern manufacturing philosophy.
We are clearly focussed on magazines and catalogues, which we treat as a high-class commodity.
We believe we have the very best technology backed by the very best customer service.
We watch our costs like hawks and if our magazine printing factory is a bit like a non-stop sausage factory then so be it.
That's what we do and we strive to do it well." That philosophy has been backed by an aggressive investment programme, £12m ($21m) over the six years, which has seen not only the KBA presses but a new 10,000 square foot (930 square metre press hall, twin Agfa Galileo CTP systems and enhanced finishing lines.
The result has been year-on-year turnover growth of 38 per cent in 2003 and 25 per cent in 2004, with 20 per cent targeted for the current year.
The financial disciplines are tough, with the company committed to delivering a consistent 10 per cent return on turnover and 35 per cent on capital invested.
The system seems to be working - Buxton Press turnover has been boosted from a sub-£6m ($10.5m) level in 2002 to a projected £12m ($21m) for 2005.
It is in the pressroom where Bernard Galloway's son and production director, Kirk, has the task of making his KBA presses perform day and night.
KBA said that he is one of the most hands-on, sleeves rolled up production directors to be found in British printing.
And Kirk Galloway talks with conviction as to how he has geared up the Buxton Press production performance year after year.
His reel sheeters bring benefits to Buxton Press and its customers.
He commented: "We gain on storage space and better handling, the presses gain a steady and reliable paper feed, whilst our publishing customers, who supply 45 per cent of our paper, pocket savings from buying reels.
I'd have sheeters on every press if I could." Kirk Galloway has another trick up his production sleeve.
He is currently running two of his KBA's alcohol-free.
The results are fewer VOC emissions, less alcohol to buy and store, fewer health and safety restrictions to worry about and quality standards untarnished.
He added: "It's a way I want to go on all presses." Long perfecting is now a Buxton Press way of life.
Kirk Galloway sees no difference in perfecting as compared with a single-pass press.
His pressmen, in their distinctive maroon company polo shirts, hold the register running consistently at 12,000 an hour double-sided and the productivity gains are claimed to be enormous.
Although Kirk Galloway has respect for other press manufacturers, he backs the KBA partnership to the hilt, adding: "KBA presses are undoubtedly amongst the best in the world and we get some excellent technical support.
What is even better is that KBA are improving their presses year after year.
Our latest press, with its full automation, can produce twice as much as our first KBA in 1999." But production expertise on its own would achieve nothing.
Buxton Press has to earn the work out there in the marketplace and that is the job of sales director George Briddon, who joined the company 12 years ago.
It his ambition and drive that has opened many publishing doors for the Buxton product.
Whilst much of Buxton's work comes from the publishing heartland of London and the south of England but gradually Buxton Press is moving its total market that little bit nearer the Derbyshire Peaks so that this year about 60 per cent of the work will come from north of the Watford Gap.
Briddon has a 16-strong customer support team.
Estimators, title managers (account executives), telesales executives and on-the-road salesmen all combine to rack up what he describes as "an incomparable level of publisher service." And if sales at Buxton Press is an effective team so is the entire 100-strong workforce.
It is a young team with an average age only a fraction over 30, all recruited locally, trained in house and living no more than six miles from the factory.
Buxton Press is the world's biggest user of KBA long perfector presses.
In a recent survey of the UK's Top 500 printers, Buxton Press is ranked 79 for return on capital employed and is in the top 10 for operating profitability.
But success breeds no complacency with Bernard Galloway.
He pointed to a tough road ahead with colossal over capacity in the UK printing industry, massive gravure installations coming on stream at Sheffield and Liverpool and web offset printers desperate for work, reaching down in to sheetfed territory.
He said: "Magazine printing is a tough, price-driven business and if we are to survive and succeed we have to be at the top of our game. Request a free brochure from KBA ...
We are delighted to have KBA as such a vital partner and together we aim to win.".
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