After 68 years in the commercial printing industry, the question which is often posed to Boksburg Print is ‘What is the secret of your success?’.
For MD Andrew Tinker the solution is quite simple, ‘you have to keep investing in the business for the future’. A big part of this is ensuring that the company has the latest technology accompanied by an investment strategy based on a strictly maintained timeline.
Tinker says: “Without a structured plan in place, you actually have no future. Conventional litho printing equipment carries a high price tag but at the same time has greater longevity. However, only the latest technology can ensure that you remain competitive and ahead of the curve. On the other hand, digital systems have a much shorter lifespan, both in terms of cost-effectiveness and technological advantage, this means that your investment schedule for digital has to be shorter than for the heavy metal systems.”
Almost a year ago, Boksburg Print made its latest investment in new digital print technology with the installation of a Xerox Versant 2100 digital production press to replace an existing Xerox JF75 printer. For Tinker, there was no real consideration on the make of press, just the model. He notes, “Xerox has been our partner since 2010, and we have always been very happy with the capabilities. When we started the process of considering our next investment we knew we needed a device which would offer a major increase in volume, as well as enhanced colour printing capabilities.”
“After looking at the various models in the Xerox stable, and based on extensive consultations and evaluations with Bytes Document Solutions and its distributor Digilogix, it soon became clear that the Versant 2100 was the ideal model for our needs.”
While the Versant is not the top of the Xerox production printer range, Boksburg Print determined that the combination of the colour printing capabilities of the device combined with its 100-page per minute print capacity was best suited for the volumes of digital prints being handled, while still offering additional capacity for future growth.
The inclusion of digital printing in the production spread at Boksburg Print was seen as a strategic step designed to be able to offer clients a solution for their specific requirements. Tinker adds, “Despite all the negative talk in certain sectors about the future of print, we have found that there is a real benefit in being able to offer our customers the best service regardless of the length of their print run. Customers want a printer who can offer them a single point of contact. Over the years we have carefully determined where the most cost-effective cross over points are for the various job types. Digital gives us the ability to handle the shorter runs while litho has become so efficient and cost-effective that we can now produce so much more work using conventional production methods.”
The focus at Boksburg Print is on print quality of the highest standards combined with outstanding customer service across the four sectors which the company focuses on. Conventional litho is the foundation on which the company has been founded; however, jobbing work is still a major contributor to the workload.
Digital printing and in-house finishing are the latest additions to the service offering but both make a considerable contribution to the turnover of the company.
Tinkers says, “We aim to be able to offer our customers a quality, full-service solution without excuses. This means that we handle as much of our production in-house as we possibly can.”
While Boksburg Print has equipped its in-house finishing department with state-of-the-art solutions for its conventional printing production, it has also added dedicated solutions for its digital production capabilities ensuring that all jobs are handled efficiently and with the highest possible quality.
“For us, digital is supplementary and complementary to our litho printing capabilities and gives us the ability to provide our clients with a single source of supply. For our digital to match our litho printing quality, we needed a device which could achieve the highest print quality on a wide range of substrates. The Versant 2100 provides us with just that,” says Tinker.
The Xerox Versant 2100 features a rendering quality of 1200 x 1200dpi in 10-bit colour depth which is equivalent to a full 2400dpi print quality. This means that print quality is extremely high with sharp and vibrant colours. It also means that the printer has a wider colour gamut than most standard digital devices allowing it to more faithfully match the production from the litho presses.
Another important feature of the Versant 2100 is the Stock Library Manager which allows the printer to store the characteristics of a particular paper stock for easy recall and re-use. This saves production time as the handling and operating profiles of the paper do not have to be manually set each time the paper is used.
It can handle coated and uncoated papers, bright papers, labels, business cards, glossy brochures, window decals, greeting cards, embossing, polyesters and custom solutions. It is even able to handle mixed-stock jobs. This makes it a powerful production tool capable of short-run and customised print jobs or as a stepping stone to longer-run work which will be printed in the same quality on litho.
“This investment will stand us in good stead on the digital front for a while, but the investment cycle continues, and there will be more developments from Boksburg Print. Our spread of product offerings across various revenue streams allows us to meet the needs of a diverse range of clients. This, in turn, allows us to plan our growth strategy to provide the maximum benefit for the company, our staff and our clients,” concludes Tinker.
* This article was published and written by THE GAPP Magazine, Vol 7
