Printers Install Heidelberg Solutions to Expand Their Business Prospects

The Ricoh Pro C901’s inline finishing capability means that certain jobs can bypass the company’s bindery altogether on the way to the customer, enabling Winchester to meet tight delivery deadlines. One recent job, for example, called for the overnight production of a short-run of 20-page saddlestitched booklets. “A rush job like that would have been impossible to complete the work on time with our previous digital press, which lacked inline finishing,” Hottle said.

“The Ricoh is a workhorse press that handles digital jobs quickly, and produces high-quality work with a minimum of downtime,” Hottle concluded. “We use it for anything and everything that fits—from business cards to postcards and booklets— including helping us with scheduling during busy times when our offset presses are all loaded up. At the end of the day we’re going to be more profitable with the Ricoh Pro than we were before.”

The company’s equipment lineup includes 40˝, 29˝ and small-format Heidelberg offset presses, a 45˝ POLAR programmable guillotine cutter, a Heidelberg Stitchmaster ST100 8-pocket saddlestitcher with stacker, and a 65˝ Rastek wide-format inkjet printer, which represents a growing market for the company. On the front end, Heidelberg’s Prepress Manager workflow powers a Suprasetter 105 with Autoloader, used to image Saphira Chemfree plates. Winchester Printers also takes advantage of Saphira inks and coatings in the pressroom.

Third-generation, family run Winchester Printers is a full-service commercial printer whose clients include businesses, universities, organizations, and associations throughout Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Northern Virginia, as well as Washington, DC and parts of Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

“We understand print, and we have the capabilities and expertise to put that understanding to work for our customers,” Hottle said. “Many of our key employees have been with the company for 20-plus years. We know how to get things done.”

Graphicolor Printing Bids Goodbye to Bindery Bottleneck with New Polar 78 X Cutter

Graphicolor Printing, a small-format commercial printer in New Berlin, WI, recently installed a 30˝ Polar 78 X high-speed guillotine cutter for four-up formats to increase capacity and relieve a bottleneck caused by an increase in job volume.

“Our volume is up, yes, but we were working one-and-a-half shifts on our existing cutter and were unable to keep up with production,” said company president Mike Huebner. “As a result, jobs took longer to complete, and it was getting tight meeting our delivery times. On top of that, we were paying a lot in overtime.”

The new POLAR 78 X, used primarily for finished work, has solved Graphicolor’s bottleneck problem completely while providing short setup times and high cutting precision. The company retains a five-year-old 36˝ Polar 92 X primarily to cut and trim parent sheets.

“Thanks to eliminating the backlogs, we’re running more efficiently than ever,” Huebner said.