Offset Printing
Spiral Colour continues on its steady course of expansion with the installation of a Screen Truepress 344
Monday 08. June 2009 - Macclesfield printer Spiral Colour has installed a Screen Truepress 344 digital printing system to meet the needs of its customers. The investment is part of a five-year plan to take the company from an in-house facility to a successful digital and litho commercial print operation.
The Truepress joins an Oce CPS900 digital press, an Oce 9160 wide format digital press plus a four-colour Ryobi and a two-colour Ryobi, both B3, and a B2 Solna press. “We analysed the print market sectors, says Spiral Colour print production manager Paul Gaskell. “We identified high quality digital print as one area that we could be very successful in.
Spiral Colour is part of the Allmand-Smith Group and originally serviced the print requirements of the groups companies, especially Stormguard, the UK market leader in door sills, rainwater and draught excluders and rainwater systems, providing its packaging materials and marketing collateral. It also had a handful of local firms who were linked to the Allmand-Smith Group using its facilities. In November 2007, the Allmand-Smith Group board made the decision to expand the print operation into a fully-fledged B3 digital and litho print company in order to attract an external client base, and to build on that.
In March 2008, Spiral Colour made its first substantial capital investment in the Oce CPS900 followed six months later by the Oce 9160 wide format press. Along with the existing litho presses, the company now had the capabilities to offer B3 litho and digital and was attracting a new client base for which it was producing wide format exhibition work, posters, banners and promotional work.
Its new clients had new requirements and Spiral Colour was considering the best way to move forward, which was when it started ongoing discussions with Screen about the Truepress 344. Screen helped Spiral Colour with cost analysis, looking at unit costs and what was needed to produce the work for both the parent company and also to service the new clients.
“Working closely with Screen, it became clear that the Truepress would be the ideal machine for us to follow our expansion plans, says Paul. “We were attracting lots of new work for the Oce machines, but run lengths were creeping up but not enough to make it cost-effective to run on the existing Ryobi presses, with makereadies taking around an hour.
Spiral Colours jobs vary from a few hundred copies of high-end prestigious brochures to 250,000 letterheads for a national chain of estate agents. “The Truepress 344 has taken us into the higher echelons of quality, says Paul. “We recently produced a job that was almost completely solid gold with a fine pattern within the image. The client, a design agency, was blown away by the result, which far exceeded its expectations of the final printed product.
The Allmand-Smith Group put its five-year plan into force in 2007 and has made three major capital investments in 18 months. It has stuck to its original plan and its timescale, despite the turbulent times the print industry is experiencing and is reaping the benefits of that confidence, taking on more staff and equipment while at the same time exceeding last years targets by 10%. “We have done this by identifying deficiencies in the local market, ” says Paul. “We could see that the B1 arena is suffering very much from overcapacity: that is brutally apparent. We were cautious not to get involved in certain markets and looked at more niche areas. High quality digital print is an area that we can perform very well in. Our gut reaction and commercial acumen have paid dividends.
The immediate success of the Truepress has inspired Spiral Colour to implement a digital workflow based around Screens Trueflow SE technology. Artwork is digitised and sent to the appropriate output device, with Trueflow acting as a digital hub linking all the machines. The company also purchased Riteapprove SE, Screens online job submission, remote proofing and approval solution for Trueflow SE, in order to provide the highest level of service on an international scale to the top level of clients. This dramatically reduces the timescale of proof approval and cost of sending proofs to worldwide destinations. “This was worked out in consultation with Screen, says Paul. “They really wanted to understand what we needed to achieve and we have forged a really good working partnership with them.
Screen UK managing director Brian Filler says: “Deciding which steps to take in an expansion programme can be daunting. We feel it is absolutely necessary as a supplier to have a thorough understanding of the company and what it wants to achieve. Only then can we give the best possible advice and provide the best possible solutions and service.
Spiral Colour now has total confidence in its ability to produce work of a very high standard and provide a service that is cost effective and time efficient. “We knew we would have to go through the process of growth and development, much like a child does, says Paul. “But we mapped it out and kept on track. We constantly review and make sure that we are going in the right direction. We have a bang up to date press which is attracting new business and we cant see any reason why we shouldnt exceed this years targets too.