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| Kwik Kopy | ||
| Steve Whitaker, franchise owner | ||
| Columbus, OH | ||
Ever since Steve Whitaker opened his Kwik Kopy Printing franchise outside of Columbus, OH, in 1986, he has maintained a company-wide mantra: high quality and fast turnaround. His three-employee firm is located in a 2,200-aq.-ft. facility in an industrial park. Since launching his business 13 years ago, Whitaker has focused on providing color printing to a variety of corporate, ad agency and manufacturing |
Because of the T-51 AE’s ease of use, Whitaker felt the new unit would provide a key advantage to his business. "I have one press operator, and the time he spends setting up a job is valuable," he says, "It used to take a half hour to set up jobs. Now, with the new T-head, it only takes five minutes. Once the A.B. Dick image is positioned to the paper, the T-51 image is precisely registered." |
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| customer, many of which are located in the Columbus Region. According to Whitaker, color printing services offers his shop the highest profit margins. |
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In addition, Whitaker notes, the T-51 is equipped with a single-lever control that allows the unit to be placed into the printing positions in one move of the control ever. The T-51 is equipped with a rotating arm that allows the press operator to swing the entire unit either away from the press or back into its normal operating position in about one minute. |
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| "We print only one-, two- and three- color jobs," says Whitaker. "Our work consists of a variety of typical instant print jobs, including brochures and sales manuals, as well as corporate identity products, such as business cards, stationery, letterhead and envelopes." "In the Columbus area alone, there are four major software manufacturers that use our services," continues Whitaker. " One of those software firms has 22 branch locations. And, we maintain our customers if they relocate to another part of the United States. =For example, on former client, a distributor of hot tub supplies, relocated to Atlanta, and then to California, but continues to use our printing services." According to Whitaker, his company does not advertise its services, nor does it engage in any marketing campaigns. So, how does Kwik Kopy bring in and keep such big, corporate customers? Says Whitaker, "The quality of our work is what distinguishes us from the competition. The designers with which we work don’t think that a small shop can produce high-quality color work, but we surprise them. While we don’t print four-color-process jobs, we output very high quality two- and three-color jobs." Credited by Whitaker for his shop’s most recent success is its brand-new A.B. Dick 9810 single-color, 13x17-inch, sheetfed offset press, which is equipped with a Townsend T-51 Swing-Away AE (Anniversary Edition) color head. A prototype of the T-51 AE was first introduced at the Print 97 trades show in Chicago. The T-51 moisture system is supplied with a molleton system, or a Townsend Aqua-Flow system, which is a segregated dampening unit that allows the form, oscillator, transfer and ductor rolls to carry both ink and water. This results in a three-form roll system: Two forms carry only ink, while one carries both ink and water. |
Before installing the new AE, Whitaker was using a three-year-old T-51 unit. "The difference is like night and day," he says, "The new unity achieves a better ink/water balance and a faster makeready because of on-the-fly plate adjustments. But, the real benefit of this new unit is its new plate twisting or skewing feature, which helps cut down makeready time. If it weren’t for that feature, I would not have replaced my previous T-51." Recently, Kwik Kopy received a two-color booklet cover job run on glossy paper in which the knockups required perfect registration. "In the past, that job would have taken 45 minutes of makeready," says Whitaker. "With the new T-51 AE, it took only three or four minutes to set up the job. You can move the plate-register adjustment knobs as the press is running, and you get perfect register." Since January 1998 when the press and color attachment were installed, Whitaker estimates he has increased his business by 15 percent. "We don’t always use the press for two-color jobs," he says, "But we’re not getting as backed up as we had been getting, which cuts down on our overtime. I estimate I’ll recoup my investment in one year." In the meantime, Whitaker’s business continues to grow via work-of-mouth recommendations about his high-quality printing and quick turn-around. "With the new press and color attachment, we now can produce a high-quality, two-color job in half the time it would have taken us with our old press. The new printing solution has not only enhanced our quality, but it has also improved our service." |
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