Offset Printing
Lonsdale to install six-colour XL 75 with colour management this month
Friday 12. June 2009 - Lonsdale Print Solutions has committed to a three for one press replacement which will still give it a net 25% increase in output. The new £1.2million press arrives this month.
The company is decommissioning two four-colour sheetfed presses, a B2 and a B3 format machine, and one of its continuous stationery presses. It is replacing them with a Speedmaster XL 75-6-P+LX with Prepress Interface workflow and Axis Control spectrophotometry.
This fulfils a major step in the strategy of Gary Kiernan and Les Hornby, joint managing directors and owners, who bought the company last year. The two year plan outlined then was to invest in more up to date technology and reposition Lonsdale as a printer of breadth with forms printing rather than being viewed as a forms printer specifically.
“We looked very widely before coming down in favour of Heidelberg,” says Mr Kiernan. “Every person we talked to with an XL 75 was delighted with it and our tests showed that it would do what it claims on both lightweight and heavyweight stock.
“For us it wasnt just the makeready times but the speed of the press which was convincing. Its a press which is highly productive and consistently productive. We like its versatility, too.”
Colour management will be a key selling point for the company. It opted for offline spectrophotometry which it felt was more flexible for the range of paper formats and work it will be handling. Lonsdale Print Solutions anticipates an increase in work from existing clients with this new press as well as the potential to expand into new areas.
The XL 75 will operate 24 hours a day, six days a week from the companys 35,000 sq ft plant in Wellingborough. Its sister company Express Printing has recently moved from a leased building in Peterborough to the owned Wellingborough site. Both companies will sell under their own brand name.