Loxleys has replaced a long serving 25 year old Komori with the latest Komori G540 Advance press which is now in action at the greetings card printer’s Sheffield factory.
The press delivers a leap in productivity thanks to faster makeready and higher running speed. The new press is rated at 16,000sph. Managing director Tony Lorriman says: “This upgrade strengthens our long term capabilities, ensuring we continue to deliver the high levels of quality, reliability and service that our customers expect.
“As every high volume card range we produce goes through our litho printing operation, this investment gives us greater efficiency, enhanced performance and the confidence to support our customers’ greetings card supply chain well into the future.”
The press will also reduce the minimum orders handled on the litho press thanks to faster makeready, and so will narrow the gap to its digital print operation.
The company visited the Komori Europe demonstration centre in Utrecht last year to see the technology, albeit not to the same specification, put through its paces along with the KP-Connect networking software.
The G540 Advance delivers an improvement on sustainability as the press is more parsimonious in terms of energy consumption, cuts waste thanks to automation and reduces generation of VOCs when printing.
There was also a concern that parts for the 25-year-old press would become harder and harder to obtain. The £1.5 million investment in the new press will put an end to these concerns. It has been funded through HSBC.
Operations director Gary Anderson says: “Print technology has significantly moved on in the 25 years since our last litho press installation so we’re now bang up to date from a technology perspective which means print quality and colour consistency benefits for our customers.
“While this investment strengthens our ability to deliver consistently high quality print it also significantly enhances our sustainability credentials with reductions in waste, energy consumption and VOC (volatile organic compound) emissions which all reduce our environmental footprint.”
The installation at Loxley’s follows a year behind the installation of a five-colour B1 Lithrone at Woodmansterne. A key difference however is that the Woodmansterne press is printing cards for its own use while Loxleys prints for a wide range of greetings cards publishers.
