PrintWorks (North) Ltd, Wetherby, has announced the installation of its first four-colour litho press and the UK's first Ryobi 524GE. Alongside the press is a DPX polyester-based computer-to-plate system. The package was purchased from Apex Digital Graphics, the UK's official Ryobi distributor.
The new purchase replaces two aging single colour presses – an SRA2-format Oliver and a B3-format Heidelberg GTO, one 17 and one 12 years old. "They had been great machines for us," said PrintWorks (North) Managing Director Paul Johnson. "Along with two Ryobi 3200 machines, they had been the backbone of our business from day one. Of course, commercial print has changed quite a lot in that time, and now the majority of customers are asking for four colour print. We had been farming such requests out, but this had reached close to £90,000 worth of work in the last year, and so 12 months ago we took the decision to move into four-colour production ourselves.
"In taking that decision, we also decided that we did not have to lock ourselves into offset-litho production, so we looked at everything. We examined low and high level digital production, from the likes of Xerox and HP, and we looked closely at the DI option. Digital still wasn't flexible enough to handle the full range of the work that we produce, which left us with traditional litho and DI.
"Putting both to the test, the DI handled three days worth of our typical work in just one working day – which was impressive. However, the Ryobi and separate CtP solution handled the same three days work in just four hours! Decision made!"
Paul Johnson concedes that maybe this is a move that the company could have made three or four years ago. "I have to say that we have been both surprised and delighted with the performance of the products in just the first few weeks of production. One typical job for us – a pharmaceutical case study – required us to produce 140 plates. The DPX ran through plate production in no time at all – in fact we now leave it producing plates for this kind of work overnight. On press, the changeover time between plates is extremely quick, and, for four-colour work, the fit is almost spot on as soon as you put the plates on.
"One recent job – something that we would have sent out prior to the arrival of the Ryobi 524GE – just showed its capabilities: it was four-back-four, including tints, solids and 300 line screen high quality images. The press handled everything superbly."
The company is now receiving more and more four-colour printing enquiries from existing customers. In its first month of operation the press has produced 40% new business.
Due to its continued use of Ryobi presses, the company had known Apex Digital Graphics for many years. "We already had a good working relationship with Apex," said Paul Johnson. "But they have been excellent throughout the purchase and installation cycle with this press and CtP package. I really can't fault them."
Ryobi's recently introduced 520GE series is equipped with a high level of automation and a wealth of quality, productivity and environmental features. The Ryobi 520GE series is at the cutting edge of B3 offset for 2, 4 and 5-colour print production, and is also highly compact, offering 40% space savings over equivalent models from other suppliers. The printing units consist of a double-diameter impression cylinder and a double-diameter transfer drum.
Big-press features include semi-automatic plate changing, allowing plates to be changed quickly and accurately. The operator merely sets the plate on the positioning pins and presses the button. Ryobi's program inking system automatically supplies ink to ink rollers to match the image from the start of printing. After a pre-set number of prints have been produced the ink on the rollers is automatically restored to an even state, ready for the next job.
Thirteen-year-old PrintWorks (North), which employs a team of ten at its Wetherby premises, and anticipates a turnover this year of close to £1 million, provides a full design and print production service, including in-house graphic and web design, pre-press studio, and print finishing. The company produces a wide range of commercial print for customers both in the local area and across the UK. |
