A Canon iX3200 HD inkjet press is being installed in Padstow as a key part in the transformation of TJ Books.
Over the last few months the former TJ International has consolidated on a single site, installed digital presses for printing and embellishment, unrolled a new corporate identity and prepared for a broadening of the customer base into short run, high quality colour books via automation.
It is the culmination of a process begun at the start of 2018 when Andy Watts led a management buyout of the £13.5 million turnover business. The first 12 months, he explains, was about getting to understand the business, 2019 was about researching the technology needed and at the start of this year, the implementation began. “We had to cope with a fast growth in sales in 2019 as well,” says Watts, “so that by the end of 2019 we had decided what we would be doing in terms of strategy. It was going to be challenging to do it anyway. Then came the pandemic.”
As a key Canon customer, TJ Books was kept abreast of developments on the new cut sheet platform that had been earmarked for its public launch at Drupa. The team was invited to Venlo, the Netherlands, to see the new machine ahead of this launch.
The rebranding and repositioning of the business is a visible aspect of this. The old fashioned TJ International website has been replaced by a fresh identity with a focus on the people that work in the business, including pictures from a photoshoot on a local beach which took place in February.
Behind the rebrand and new look has been a focus on improving the efficiency of the business as well as expanding the options for publishers. Watts explains: “There have been two main drivers to what we have done: increasing efficiency and service levels with existing work and part was to take us into a slightly different area of work with high end inkjet.
“We have colour in litho and colour toner and we had colour inkjet, but only for uncoated stocks. The iX enables us to print HD colour on coated stocks and to be more flexible in format than is possible in the Canon ColorStream. The ColorStream is somewhat restrictive in how you use it.”
The cut sheet inkjet press will address runs of several hundred below the 1,000 copy point where litho becomes more efficient and above the print on demand end where toner is more effective, which is only up to 20 copies, says Watts. “The new inkjet press sits in the middle.”
The requirement for shorter run colour book printing is there, says Watts. “We have quite a few customers that would like us to print short run colour books, but either the technology wasn’t available to them or the price point was wrong. And there is an ability to onshore production.
“We already do this in mono books, now we are adding the full colour experience to that.”
TJ Books has already installed a five-colour Ricoh Pro C7200 and a 9200 cut sheet press, a second Hunkeler Bookline, Muller Martini Vareo binder and a Duplo DuSense embellishment press. The presses are intended to print covers, using the ability of the Ricoh to print a clear varnish like toner, metallics and a fetching neon pink. The Duplo, in addition to printing clear inkjet, can apply different textures and tangible effects to increase the appeal of a printed book.
These combine with the investment in the Canon cut sheet press. But that is only part of the story. Part of the appeal in buying into TJ for the former St Ives and CPI Books executive came from the potential to freshen up the business. While it had at one time been on the cutting edge of technology with first one, then a second installation of the Canon ColorStream to join three large format Koenig & Bauer Rapidas, it had slipped behind.
“At that time we were ahead of the curve in terms of technology, but seven years is a long time in this industry,” he says.
The Rapida presses remain: “Litho is litho. It is still the backbone of the business even if the presses need a little more care than they used to.”
Those presses are handling shorter runs and there is less work in progress around the factory, fewer sections awaiting the bindery for glue, PUR or section sewn soft and hardcover binding. At one point the factory could be awash with pallets of work waiting for the next stage in production.
That is where Watts has seen the potential for changing the culture. “Over the last few months we have done lots of things to improve the workflow and that leads into improving service levels for our customers.
“If we increase ability to turn stuff round quickly, by default you are increasing your capacity. That gives us spare capacity to react quickly when that is needed. It’s about managing customers’ wants and needs. They may want something; they don’t always need it.
“Most publishers would rather print locally if they could, so there is definitely an opportunity to onshore work.”
The pandemic has shown the fragility of supply chains which has switched attention to more local suppliers while increasing the velocity of the business, which is also good for cashflow.
The reorganisation has given TJ Books the ability to turn a job from order to finished book in just a few hours. The reel printed on the ColorStreams can be wheeled to a Hunkeler Bookline and inline to the Vareo binder and trimmer for a finished book, or diverted from the binder if casebound. This response will not be needed for the most part, but the ability to do so is an important part of the mix.
“Some of our publishers will not really understand what is possible. Some are constantly looking at the marketplace and have more knowledge. These are the ones asking about digital printing – and we are having those conversations.”
It also gains because both web presses and the new sheetfed press are from Canon and share the same workflow. “It makes stuff easier to move around. Say we are four books short on an order we printed on the ColorStream, we can now reroute the job and go straight to the cut sheet without having to wait until the right reel of paper is loaded on the continuous press,” he explains.
That is also going to require greater communication around the business. The installation of an EFI MIS is intended to sort this. Instead of management by walking around and what Watts calls “feeling what’s going on”, a flow of real time information will tell him precisely what is going on. “It’s about growing the versatility of the business. To plan your future you have to know what the history is and to make us easier to work with. It needs more connectivity, more transparency. You just have to see how much email traffic that goes through the business to see this.”The idea will be to reduce that traffic and eliminate the time wasted by account execs waiting for an email to retrieve the job file or for instructions associated with the job. Tighter integration will free up time, especially with a growing proliferation of shorter run jobs.
As with many businesses, TJ Books has found Covid-19 has accelerated what were existing trends. The average initial print run is down 20%, he says, adding that while nobody at the business has suffered from the virus, the disruption it caused among the customer base was significant. “The things that we have done in the last three months had to be done in the business to improve its efficiency and we were well prepared for this ahead of Covid.”
TJ Books has been able to unite in its entirety in a single building on the industrial estate on the hill overlooking Padstow.
