Andy Matthews was ahead of the game with the decision to shed the litho press. Now, Crescent Press in Solihull is an all digital operation, placing litho work with a handful of trusted trade suppliers. But the future is definitely digital.
The journey began with initial investment in large format inkjet printing in 2013 to complement the company’s ten-colour B2 litho press. “We bought a large format company and merged that into our business. The margins that were possible in large format were something of an eye opener.
“We had always been a litho printer, running 24 hours a day, but with very little to show for it at the end of every month,” he says.
The strategy at this point was to continue investment in large format and with an HP Latex 3.2 metre wide roll to roll printer in mind, Matthews caught the flight to HP’s European demonstration centre in Barcelona. Fate, in the form of HP Indigo business development manager Lyle Rainey, intervened. The trip was extended to take in a demonstration of a B2 Indigo. That was in May 2017 and Matthews had no intention of investing. “I remember saying ‘we will never go for that’,” says Matthews.
But by December, he says, his attitude had done a complete turnaround. In the mean time he had looked at the invoices from the litho side and realised that while litho was generating a lot of turnover, there was almost no margin in it. “So much so that if today we were still in litho, I don’t think we would still be in business.” he says.
By April 2018 the Indigo 12000 had arrived, along with Horizon Stitchliner MKIII, BQ 270 perfect binder, Smart Slitter, three-knife trimmer and creaser folder, all provided by IFS. A steep learning curve followed.
The company is no longer wasting sheets at makeready. There is no plate cost, either for consumables nor for the equipment.
And there is no cost for press maintenance. The first sheet out of the press is an exact match for the artwork, says Matthews. “We still get people asking to come for a press pass and we can adjust the colour but, almost invariably, we end up where we started,” he says.
Like the managing director, staff have had to come round to the digital way of working. So too have customers. “That was the tricky part. We told customers we were adding the Indigo, not that we were parting with the litho press. But at the end of the day nobody much cares as long as they are getting the product they want.”
Crescent still handles litho work, placing it with a number of trade suppliers, but it is also changing the way that customers work. There are no longer large orders for one job which is stored until needed. Instead, shorter runs and reorders have taken over, with the opportunity to refresh the artwork.
It is having the desired effect, and not just on margins. “February this year was the best sales month we have had in 23 years of trading. Then March happened.
“We have been very busy in large format since the start of June and we expect volumes on the Indigo to be back to near normal once people get back to work.”
The company’s most recent investment has been on this side of the business with installation of an EFI Vutek 1625 LED UV flatbed press.
This connects into the EFI Pace MIS and Switch centred workflow that have been part of the transition to an all digital operation. And, says Matthews, this is where Crescent‘s future lies.
“We are not going back to litho. Now if we hit capacity issues we would like another, possibly smaller format, Indigo.”
Andy Matthews decided to make Crescent Press an entirely digital operation, using only a handful of trusted trade suppliers to place litho work with. By 2018 the printer’s digital investments were in full swing.
