Offset Printing

Park formalises its colour focus with Heidelberg ISO 12647-2 certification

Thursday 14. May 2015 - Park Communications' emphasis has always been on quality and intelligent customer service. Printing to the highest quality has been entrenched in the business psyche but now it has secured Heidelberg ISO 12647-2 certification which gives it a place in the Heidelberg Colour Club.

“This certification provides our customers with independent endorsement and the knowledge we do just what we say we do. We felt we would get more practical support by doing our certification with Heidelbeerg and we received first rate advice and guidance,” says Alison Branch, Managing Director.
“Even though we thought our colour management process was rigourous and we have won many awards for quality, we found there were still challenges in achieving this certification. It is a very rigourous process but our operators take a pride in their work and are always willing to adapt to new ways of working and they are very proud to have achieved this certification.”
The company has immediately used the certification for a social media marketing campaign and Alison Branch believes it could well ensure that Park are eligible for more sales tenders.
“It is just so much stronger to say you have the certification than to say that you are quality minded and work to the ISO 12647-2,” she says.
.
Park provides a one-point-of-contact managed service to translate, print, distribute and store all of a customer’s literature. It prints: luxury marketing, fine art auction and retail catalogues; marketing literature; reports and accounts; fund management reports; and government publications. Customers include consumer and B2B companies, specialist agencies, City institutions, and government departments.
Other certification held by Park includes ISO 9001 quality, ISO14001 environmental, EMAS and FSC Chain of Custody certification.
Meantime Heidelberg continues to strengthen its colour consultancy services. Neil Collier is joining the northern Heidelberg colour team where he will work closely with Neil Blakely, meeting the growing demand for Print Colour Management (PCM) and ISO 12647-2 certification services from Heidelberg. Neil was previously a press demonstrator so well versed in the technicalities of calibrating presses to reach pre-agreed targets.
Heidelberg has relaunched its Colour Club pages on the UK web site and this now includes a free colour evaluation service. Printers not already in the Colour Club (which comprises companies which have undertaken Heidelberg 12647-2 certification) can fill in a form, print off a test sheet suited to their equipment. They can then send in five consecutive sheets to the colour team in Brentford who will check them for dot gain and tonal values and make recommendations. They could provide advice or recommend some form of service.
Paul Chamberlain, who heads up the Heidelberg UK colour team, says: “We have had ten companies requesting or undergoing PCM or 12647-2 services in the last four months. It’s gone crazy. Two of our colour services have been in Ireland and the remainder the length and breadth of the UK.”