S
onja’s expertise was in the educational sector, having been an
accounting teacher. When she decided to write her own books for
teaching accounting she knew that only the highest quality would do.
What she found was that existing suppliers were unable to meet her
exacting demands for quality she then embarked on the learning curve of
establishing a print shop.
It is those same exacting standards which have seen Colourtech become one of
the largest and most technologically advanced educational printers in the country
and possibly on the entire continent. For Sonja, not only was Bapsfontein her
home but it was also the ideal place to set up her company. It offered plenty of
room at the existing farm house but also provided more than sufficient space for
future growth, as well as a wealth of local people wanting and willing to work.
Colourtech is now a family business, not just in terms of the fact that both Sonja’s
husband, Deon, and son, Ettiene work for the company, but for the fact that many
of the people who work for the company have done so for many years. Colourtech
established a farm school in association with surrounding farmers and has
assisted many young people to attend university. Many of these students now
work for the company. The staff now totals more than 120 people and more
than 1000 people are directly reliant on the company for their livelihood. Sonja
commented, ‘We truly are a family here. There is a deep sense of ownership by
our employees, they know the contribution they make to the company and the
role the company plays in their lives and they work to make the company
succeed because then they are successful.’
Colourtech is now housed in a massive print hall where all manner of educational
and corporate printing is handled on a range of black-and-white and colour digital
presses as well as lithographic presses. While corporate work is a growing area
for the company, it is still in the area of educational printing that Colourtech
finds the majority of its work. It is the print provider for the more than 40 000
students registered at North West University. Every book for every student at the
University is printed by Colourtech upon registration. Within weeks of enrolling
at the university, the students receive all their course material personally printed
and delivered to them.
The same applies to school and other tertiary facilities around the country and
even distance learning students based in other parts of the world. There is a
good chance that someone who you know has a text book which has been
printed by Colourtech.
The company also prints the exam papers for most of these educational
facilities. Additional security has been put in place in the demarcated exam
printing section. In all the years it has been printing exam papers, there has
never been a problem.
While the majority of the printing that the company handles is black-and-white
due to the nature of its composition, there is a growing demand for colour
printing. Both forms of printing are showing year-on-year growth with
black-and-white growing at a rate of around 30 percent and colour doubling
in volume. While the greatest majority of the colour printing is for covers,
there is a growing volume of colour being included in the pages of the text
books the company prints.
Sonja commented, ‘The books we print for university students belong to the
students but the books we print for schools have to be able to last for a few
years. This means that we had to find a way of protecting the covers. We have
tried laminating them and we have tried doing a flood varnish on our digital press.
Both these solutions did not work. The laminating starts to peel after a period of
time and the flood varnish on the digital press is very expensive which increases
the cost of printing. We did have an offline varnishing system but it was difficult
to use and did not always give the best results.’
Ettiene, Sonja and Deon Groenewald of Colourtech Holdings.
The large and impressive despatch at Colourtech Holdings
The print hall at Colourtech Holdings features numerous black-and-white and colour digital printing presses.
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