Offset Printing

PACIFIC GRAPHICS INC. INSTALLS MITSUBISHI DIAMOND V3000LX, CITING GREATER MAKEREADY SPEED AND PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY

Friday 16. January 2009 - Adaptability is one hallmark of a successful business. By leveraging its ability to readily adapt to changing market conditions, Pacific Graphics Inc. (PGI) has successfully attracted more projects from existing customers and created business opportunities with new clients.

Seeing the substantial growth in 40-inch work in its marketplace, PGI purchased the new Mitsubishi Diamond V3000LX sheetfed press.

“The larger sheet size and wider stock range were very attractive to us,” said Bill Wasson, production manager of the family-owned shop. “Those features will give us the added capabilities we need to keep up with demand in our market.”

The six-color Diamond V3000LX handles a maximum sheet size of 29 1/2 x 41 11/32 inches. The press is engineered to print on different stock types across a thickness range from 0.0016 inches to 0.040 inches.

“Our existing presses printed up to 24-point stock,” Wasson noted. “Accommodating heavier board up to 40-point will enable us to branch out into the packaging end of the business.”

Founded in 1988, PGI runs an extremely lean operation. The company employs 17 people at its 13,000-square-foot facility. It generates $5 million in annual sales printing high-quality annual reports, marketing materials, promotional pieces, brochures and presentation folders. Run lengths of approximately 20,000 impressions are most common.

The Diamond V3000LX, which debuted in the United States at Graph Expo 2008 last October, is PGI’s third Mitsubishi press. A six-color, 28 x 40-inch 3F-13 was installed in 2000, followed in 2005 by a six-color, 20 x 28-inch Diamond 1000S.

“At the time, most of our work was in the 40-inch size, and we bought the 28-inch press to be more competitive on shorter runs,” Wasson said. “With this latest press purchase, we wanted to significantly reduce makeready times. The Diamond V3000LX provides even quicker turnarounds on short-run, multiform jobs.”

The Diamond V3000LX is equipped with SimulChanger, Mitsubishi’s fully automated system for simultaneous plate changes. PGI also added Diamond Color Navigator, a newly developed color adjustment system that automates the fine-tuning of colors without complicated ink key moves.

“These automated systems improve the speed and efficiency of two key aspects of makereadies — plate changing and color matching,” Wasson said. “We are looking at very fast makereadies. We are excited about the time savings that will bring to smaller projects.”