Vale Offset strengthens bottom line, grows business with Xerox J75 press
P
ackaging printing company Vale Offset has bought a
Xerox Colour J75 press from Bytes Documents Solu-
tions. Launched in 2001 as a job shop, ValeOffset has
grown into a hospitality and pharmaceutical packaging
printing specialist with a significant client base in these
sectors, and a turnover of more than R1 million a month.
A spike in the call for shorter, customised print runs
and quick turnaround times ledmanagingmember of Vale
Offset, Richard Baker, to investigate digital printing solu-
tions thatwould complement the business’s litho offering.
‘I’ve been in the industry for more than a decade and
when I asked my colleagues for their advice, they recom-
mended the Xerox Colour J75 press,’ said Baker. ‘As a
complete digital printing solution with a small footprint,
it’s making my business more productive and profitable,
and is exactlywhatwe needed to get started and thrive in
the digital print marketplace.’
The company is using the J75 primarily to print busi-
ness cards, booklets and brochures, all of which can be
printed on demand and as needed by customers. Within
two months of the purchase, more than 47 000 impres-
sions have been made which means, says Baker, that the
press will be paid off in two years.
‘Digital work is pouring in based purely on word-of-
mouth,’ he said. ‘We’re moving into higher print volumes
every month as customers become aware of our ability
to do more work faster, and deliver excellent colour print
quality at an attractive price. For example, we are able
to print business cards for customers at half the cost we
wouldhavechargedonthelithopresses,andwecanprint
thousands of booklets per day, where that used to take a
week. In addition, we are able to provide customers with
a proof of the actual product because digital enables us to
print just one item at a time.’
The J75 press automates colour, runs heavyweight
stocks at full rated speed and provides scalable feeding
and finishing solutions that produce high-value applica-
tions,’ said Grant Martin, Xerox graphic art and commer-
cial print business manager, Bytes Document Solutions.
‘It also integrates easily with your offset business and
complements your existing workflow. If your business is
ready for growth into the digital market, the J75 press is
the best solution available.’
Colour management is a key consideration for Vale
Offset. The company needs to match corporate colours
and industry colour standards, which is simple with the
J75’s inline spectrophotometer. ‘This improves colour
stability, accuracy and repeatability, ensuring that every
print is the same,’ saidMartin. ‘Automated processes like
colour calibration and destination profiling are streamlin-
ingworkflow,andboostingproductivityforValeOffset.It’s
a game-changing capability in the industry.’
The J75 automatically prints two-sided on coated pa-
per up to 300gsm, and has finishing options that could in-
clude face-trimming, saddle-stitching, punching, square-
folding, trimming, stacking, multi-position stapling, and
tri-folding.
‘The press is easy to use, and the service and support
we receive from Bytes Document Solutions is excellent,’
said Baker. ‘If you log a service call, the stated response
time is 24 hours. In reality, we get a response within two
to four hours. Bytes Documents Solutions understands
that this is our livelihood and that turnaround time is para-
mount.’
P
resented as a world premier, the Vareo was the
centre of attraction at Müller Martini’s stand
at the Hunkeler Innovationdays in Lucerne. A
large numbers of visitors wanted to see the perfect
binder, where each of the three clamps is equipped
with its own servo motor and is driven individually.
Müller Martini displayed the Vareo, which of-
fers maximum flexibility with a mechanical output
of up to 1350 cycles per hour, together with its part-
ners Hunkeler, Heidelberg, ATS and Polar in a flex-
ible machine configuration with which a complete
brochure was produced on site. It consisted of digi-
tally printed content and a cover, was bound using
hotmelt and was given a final three-side trimming
in a final step. In this configuration, the comprehen-
sive monitoring of the content and cover by barcode
was demonstrated. All modules involved used the
same barcode system to ensure that the product
had the right composition and is bound correctly.
‘The Vareo is a brilliant machine,’ said Gottfried
Leuenberger, head of Finishing at the printing and
media company W. Gassmann AG in Biel. Such so-
lutions are needed because the runs are becoming
ever smaller. I particularly noticed the outstanding
quality of the end products.’ Trond Erik Isaksen,
founder and Managing Director of Livonia Print in
Riga (Latvia), was also enthusiastic about the new
Vareo: ‘The perfect machine for digital printing -
ideal for short runs.’
For Samir Graba, managing director of Société
Imprimerie Beta in Ariana (Tunisia), the Vareo is ‘the
ideal À-la-carte solution because it is both predes-
tined for smaller runs in digital printing, but also
for the medium run segment from offset printing. I
think the new technology of the Vareo is very inter-
esting – a small, but clever machine,’. Beta, which
has two Acoro A7 perfect binders and a 335 saddle
stitcher from Müller Martini, still prints exclusively
in offset. But it is important for Samir Graba ‘that
we prepare for the future. That’s why the Hunkeler
Innovationdays were an excellent opportunity for
me to inquire in what direction the market is going
and what solutions are on offer.’
In doing so, Samir Graba noted that, with
its excellent price-performance ratio, the Vareo
all-rounder comes into its own not only in digital
printing for ultra-short runs right down to one copy
per job, but also for medium runs, regardless of
whether the brochures are produced using offset
or digital printing. This makes it the ideal perfect
binder for bookbinders and printing houses that
work with conventional printing methods and plan
to enter digital printing or are already active in digi-
tal printing.
Vareo’s flexible equipment enables varied ap-
plications. Photo books, personalised catalogues
and high-quality brochures can be produced cost-
effectively thanks to short setup times which are
indispensable for ultra-short and one-copy runs,
and short production times. That enables producing
high-quality books extremely quickly, with the very
first copy being sellable.
In addition to the Vareo, Müller Martini demon-
strated at its stand at the Hunkeler Innovationdays
how the Presto II Digital saddle stitcher is also
perfectly suitable for the gathering of signatures.
It can be used for the production of both digital and
offset printed products. The digitally printed sig-
natures were folded on the TH 56 steel folder and
gathered digitally on the Presto II Digital before the
finished book block was finally perfect bound live
on the Vareo.
‘Because we are now also active in the digital
area,’ explained Gottfried Leuenberger. ‘I am, of
course, looking into this matter closely. Our Primera
saddle stitcher is prepared for digital printing, for
which reason I had a close look during the trade fair
at the inline finishing solution
Large number of visitors at Müller Martini’s stand at the
Hunkeler Innovationdays
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