When Oakdene Services wanted to replace its ageing SRA2 Sakurai the company went against the grain. Where many printers would have chosen to invest in the latest digital press, perhaps a B2 format inkjet machine, the Newtownabbey printer decided instead to invest in a new litho press. And to take the leap into SRA1 printing. And to become the first in Northern Ireland with an LED UV press.
It was a brave move, but one that director Jamie McMullan had considered carefully and it has paid off. “The majority of our work is 100% trade,” he says. “We are printing for other small printers who may already have digital. I can see why people buy digital and I can see that there’s a market for it, but that market is now just as saturated as the litho market has become. It is easy for a new company to install a digital press in a garage and start up. There are no barriers to entry now.”
Digital printing has become a challenge to small format litho and perhaps even to B2 litho he adds. At the other end of the scale in Northern Ireland, two large commercial printers with B1 presses are dominant in the long run area while market change and consolidation means some capacity has left the market. There is room for an ambitious agile printer to fill a gap. That is what Oakdene is aiming to do. “We are not aiming to compete with the B1 printers and will not be going after their customers. But there’s a big gap for a new kid on the block, for someone to shake up the trade,” he says.
The company was founded in 1925 as a paper merchant by McMullan’s great grandfather gradually adding print and stationery services over the years. It made the full time commitment to commercial printing with the sale of the merchanting business in the 1980s, when his father Dermott McMullan took on the running of the business. The company added a promotional products arm in 2000, which trades as Zanzo, and it is also running a stock holding as a fulfilment service for a select group of customers. Chief among these is the health service in Northern Ireland for whom Oakdene fulfils and ships all manner of forms, posters and other literature. Healthcare still runs on paper.
“The health service has been the core of our print business,” McMullan says. “Now we are trying to add to that mix. The NHS is still very much integral and has grown for us as a business, now we want to grow in other spaces.”
And it is doing so, thanks to the new press. This is a four-colour RMGT 920 with LED UV. It runs faster, has a much quicker makeready and prints on a larger sheet than the Oliver 66 it has replaced. This was already a secondhand press when the company installed it in 2020. Waste is also reduced. Even though it is still early days and there is scope to tighten up on makereadies, there has been a big leap in capacity and very tangible benefits. “We are operating at our current capacity, but this is still within the capacity of the press,” he says. That will change as operators get better grips on the more automated machine and Oakdene plans to make full use of the extra production possibilities that are now available.
In the new year the company is introducing new shift patterns so that over a five-day working week, two teams will work three days, both being in the factory on a Wednesday. It means a 50% increase in capacity by working five 12-hour days rather than five eight-hour days with just two new staff to join the 11-strong team. Wednesdays will be the busiest day when its B3 Ryobi will also be in operation.
At the same time as the new press arrived, Oakdene acquired a Komori Apressia 115 guillotine and an Agfa Avalon N8 S platesetter with autoloader for Eclipse develop on press plates is due before the end of the year. Its Horizon StitchLiner is a relatively new investment, so can cope with current loadings putting the focus on a replacement for its Stahl folder. It is something for consideration in the new year and will be under strain as the company taps into the additional production from longer shifts and the faster and larger press.
“We did consider an eight-colour perfector, but it was too big for the factory as it is and would have been too big a jump for us,” McMullan says. “But never say never and this remains a long term goal.”
That might not be too far ahead. Sales, he explains, are up significantly in the three months the press has been in place and a month to month comparison between 2022 and 2021 shows a 40% leap in jobs handled. The company is running ahead of its own projections. “We have got to where we are faster than I thought we would,” he adds.
The press comes with simultaneous plate change, ink presetting and colour control as standard. What is not standard is the LED UV, a first for Northern Ireland. “It has been a game changer and we would not have been able to cope without it. I wouldn’t ever dream of doing anything else now.” Jobs are printed and arrive in the delivery completely dried ready for guillotining and delivery on the same day. There is no need to let pallets of work sit for two days – more for uncoated papers – before handling, nor is there any space to cope with the increase in throughput if working in this fashion. “We simply don’t have that amount of room,” McMullan says. “We could not have done we what we are doing with any other press in this space.”
The production space is to be increased with plans for a new building on the site, which might become space for a second press. In the meantime Oakdene has installed photovoltaic panels on the roof. While it will not be until the summer months that the company feels the full benefit of self generated electricity it still reckons to meet 20% of need immediately with 100% of what it requires possible on a decently sunny day in the summer, when daylight matches the 6am to 6pm shift pattern.
This also takes the edge off energy price increases as well as having a positive impact on the amount of carbon that the business generates and has cut the carbon footprint. McMullan explains that it remains early days for this so is too soon to judge the effectiveness and whether to what extent it can help the company’s competitiveness.
The LED UV press is already doing this. Longer run digital work can be produced cost effectively thanks to the faster makereadies that are now possible. “We can certainly give slightly longer run digital print a run for its money because of speed of makeready.
“It is just exceptionally fast and quality is higher than we have been used to. Indigo quality is good and inkjet is very good, but I can see that there is a difference in quality to litho.”
Ease of operation has been a factor in helping operators adapt to the new press, helped too by the fact that its previous press was also Japanese, so both share a cultural approach to running the machine which German and Japanese presses do not have.
The increase in staffing will still leave the company well short of the 26 employed at peak almost a decade ago. A lesson was learned then and now the aim is to remain as lean as possible. The internal cultures is much changed from those days with a single ethos across the team. During the energy crisis Oakdene is helping out with an additional £100 a month to take the edge off energy costs at home. “We have a very good team,” he says. And that is worth protecting.
Likewise while the managing director can understand the benefits of an end to end digital workflow, Oakdene still uses paper job tickets. People are not yet ready to take such a step “A switch to digital job tickets might be counter productive,” he explains.
It is not something that at this point is necessary, though with more presses that may change. Currently Oakdene is enjoying the success of having the first RMGT press in Northern Ireland, the first SRA1 machine and the first LED UV press there. It is taking on new work and is on the cusp of “bringing some very significant customers on board with potential for further growth”.
It already works for customers on the UK mainland was well as in Northern Ireland itself. “If we keep growing as we are 2023 will be another year of investment for us,” says McMullan. That second press may not be too far away.
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