KennedySmith Press, in Irvine, UK, has installed a five colour MAN Roland R700 offset press and will soon add an Optimus 2020 management information system from Optichrome.
The purchase of the new equipment was timed to coincide with a move to new premises. KennedySmith Press – related to Bioforce (UK), claimed to be the UK and Ireland market leader in herbal medicine – handles carton production for Bioforce in the UK, Switzerland and Sweden. It also supplies customers in the automotive, drinks and food industries. Some 75 per cent of the work is carton production, with general commercial colour print making up the remainder.
"Investment in the new press is a big step for us," says director Michiel Molenaar. "We are already seeing significant improvements in print quality that we can produce and the automated features of the machine make for much faster makeready – a very important factor when dealing with shorter run requirements."
The Optimus 2020 will be the company's first installation of specialist MIS equipment.
"Having started with nothing seven years ago, we gradually created our own "home-made" information system," Michiel Molenaar continues. "However, we now find that we are duplicating a lot of effort in re-keying information – our business has outgrown this very manual approach. Optimus offered us the best solution for our business.
"Whilst we do not envisage a full JDF approach just yet, it is something that we are considering for the future. For the time being, we will be happy just to get some basic job information from the Optimus system into the MAN Roland Pecom computer, along with ink profile information generated by Ink Pro linked to the Brisque platform which drives our Creo Lotem 800 CtP."
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