| February 16, 2009 Superior Lithographics is Golden State’s key packaging link |
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L.A. packaging printer forges success with its ROLAND 900XXL large format press and the manroland printservices team. At Superior Lithographics, talk about “difficult jobs” has largely disappeared. What once was difficult is now run-of-the-mill with their ROLAND 900XXL press that has over 67 million impressions on it. Looked upon as a reliable strategic supplier by its customers, Superior now has the ability to excel in expanding their folding carton business. This press not only will help them maintain their position as one of the premier suppliers of litho labels to the corrugated box market, but they expect the new large format capability press will also help open and develop new markets while making them more competitive in 2009. That’s the belief of Doug Rawson, Superior Lithographics’ President & CEO, and Rudy Chavez, VP of Operations. Known in the community as the go-to printer, the award-winning Los Angeles company is now using their fifth manroland press. The duo has seen all of the presses since the company’s early days when they were two of the three original Superior employees. “In 1986,” recalls Rawson, “we had a client request for a large format (55-inch) job. At the time, manroland was one of the few making large format presses. Rudy and I were fortunate to find a used, 63-inch ROLAND 800 nearby, so we bought it, moved and installed it, and started printing large format work.” Twenty-three years later, Superior is bigger, stronger and more talented than ever. The company has grown to 70 people and generated revenues of about $18 million in 2008. Their success is about teamwork and it shows as the highly experienced and knowledgeable staff is making a difference with the customers. So, too are manroland’s service support personnel making a difference with customers like Superior. “Over the past 20-some years, we’ve gotten to know manroland’s local technicians pretty well,” says Chavez. Having a printservices® package for the ROLAND 900XXL has proven to be a solid investment. Being the best supplier requires strong links Since installing the ROLAND 900 XXL in early 2006, the first fully automated press to take up residence in Superior’s pressroom has helped expand capabilities while boosting productivity and efficiency. What matters most to Superior’s customers throughout the Western U.S., is timely delivery of on-spec product. Most of the printer’s output is top-sheet and litho label for corrugated box and POP converters, as well as a broad range of folding cartons for both food and consumer package goods. “We are part of a dynamic and complex supply chain. With the growth of Sam’s Clubs, Costco, Best Buy, Home Depot and Wal-Mart, the demand for high quality graphics and great looking packaging is exploding,” Rawson said. “Today, the package is the ‘display,’ and the product ‘brochure’ is on the box. Even the instructions for using or installing the product are often printed on the box.“ Print buyers and consumer marketers have long considered the package as part of the brand image, but today, the package plays a much more important role in branding. Organic foods and the popularity of local and regionally grown foods have provided another opportunity for Superior to meet emerging packaging needs. These foods are all grown and processed within a couple of hundred miles of its facility so Superior can be more responsive to the food community, from design and press approvals to just-in-time delivery. Food cartons have progressed from simple clay coat or SBS to more sophisticated materials, including plastics. “A good portion of Superior’s revenue now comes from folding carton work, ever since the ROLAND 900XXL gave us the ability to print what previously had been difficult work on most any substrate,” Rawson said. Print runs vary significantly, says Chavez. “Some of our orders are for only 500 sheets and others are for 250,000. About 80 percent of our runs are between 15,000 and 50,000 sheets. That’s the benefit with this manroland press. It makes us competitive in all of these situations.” “Speed to market is a key to our success,” says Rawson. “The question we ask when making decisions on technology, as well as in other areas is, ‘Will this help us do it faster?’ The manroland press certainly allows us to do many things much quicker. This makes us a better supplier, and it makes our corrugated converting customer a better supplier to the consumer product company whose products go in the box, which also makes him a better suppler to Wal-Mart or other stores. Our performance affects every link in that chain.” Press transforms printing from “art” to “science” “In areas such as make ready, the manroland printnet PressManager definitely has a step up on anything we have seen before,” contends Chavez. “For example, from prepress, a huge percentage of the make ready is fed to the press operator before they ever click into a job. With repeat runs, the press is 85-to-90 percent make ready before the operator starts his setup. When they call up a job, the press already knows the sheet sizes, thickness and ink rotation because the information is preset with PressManager. Our operators are more efficient now.” Not only does this help get jobs up-and-running and out the door faster, but it has essentially transformed how Superior Litho produces printing. “The ROLAND 900XXL press took us from the ‘art’ of printing to the ‘science’ of printing. Regardless of the shift or crew, we can show a customer the histogram from the Press Monitor software for their job and they will see the densities are identical to both the proof and previous runs as well. As a result, we’re able to turn out more high quality and more consistent work than ever before,” says Rawson. “We do a high percentage of 6-color work,” adds Chavez. “Previously, our make ready waste was as high as 1000 sheets. Now, we’ve cut those numbers down to under 350 sheets and we do it in 18 minutes. If ‘Offset Press Make Ready’ was an Olympic event, I’d bet on our guys to win the gold medal.” Chavez notes another big plus with the press. “There aren’t many presses where you can put one sheet in the feeder and have two sheets come out successfully in the delivery.” Rawson quickly points out, “the ability to slit on-press is a tremendous advantage for us. Our die cutters include 29” x 41” equipment and a 45” x 65” box die cutter. With the ability to slit on-press, we’re now able to fill up the die cutters with work regardless of the press sheet size. Then we arrange jobs so we run a 41” x 56” sheet, slit it to make two, 28” x 41” sheets, and fill up the smaller die cutter. Since the slitter allows us to go both ways, we’re not locked into a large or a small sheet and we don’t have to buy more die cutting equipment.” Addressing issues with response and support Acknowledging reality, Rawson says “there has never been a press that, once installed, did not have issues.” At one point, he said there were issues with the slitter but they were quickly resolved with adjustments and operator training. Rawson contends that what separates a “vendor” and a true business partner is how your supplier deals with adversity. From Superior’s perspective, manroland’s printservices’ specialists have come through with flying colors. “This press prints at top speeds the best dot we have ever seen,” Rawson said. “The service support we receive from manroland’s printservices division is remarkable. They are part of our team and treat us as part of theirs.” “The people at headquarters and manroland’s team of mechanics and electricians do a great job. They definitely know what they’re doing,” Chavez said, who spoke about some repair work that was performed beyond expectations in late 2008. The printservices team looked at the calendar and planned the work in short segments to minimize downtime and the impact on Superior’s production schedules. “They worked on our press over the Thanksgiving weekend and they even worked on Thanksgiving Day,” Rawson said. “They did the work quickly by doing it in teams and when they were done, from the moment we turned the press on everything worked properly. There was no adjusting of anything. “After the work was finished, the manroland teams put this highly automated press back together and we started it up at full speed. Everyone makes equipment but not everyone has the people capable of this quality of work.” Positioned for growth, Rawson remains optimistic when looking ahead at the opportunities for Superior in 2009 and beyond, despite the current economy. “We are now becoming more of a strategic supplier for our customers, consulting on ways to integrate our manufacturing schedule with theirs to minimize everyone’s inventory, for example. In some cases, we inventory material, finish goods, and deliver on-demand. We see opportunities to move deeper into fields such as folding carton packaging for electronics, food and other consumer packages goods that are made in this area. The ROLAND 900XXL gave us the ability to print board and we plan to make full use of it.” manroland Inc., a division of manroland AG, is the world’s second largest printing systems manufacturer and the world’s market leader in web offset. manroland employs almost 9,000 people and has annual sales of some Euro 2 billion, with an export share of almost 84 percent. Web and sheetfed offset presses provide solutions for publishing, commercial and packaging printing. For more information, visit www.manroland.us.com. |
expressis verbis edition 2011