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| Wizard Printing | ||
| Richard Keogh, president | ||
| Northern New Jersey | ||
Printers of all sizes are being challenged by shorter run lengths and faster turnaround times. But one New Jersey printer epitomizes this trend in particular. Wizard Printing, a 15-employee, northern New Jersey commercial shop, thrives on short-notice jobs from its pharmaceutical, ad agency, bank, printing broker, and other commercial accounts. "We specialize in fast turnaround," says Neil Keough, President. "We receive jobs at 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon and our customer expects a two-hour turnaround before the end of the day. We get jobs on Christmas Eve that need to be finished in 24 hours!" For example, Wizard has printed 200,000 to 300,00 long-run jobs from pharmaceutical houses that need to warn patients about drug recalls. Often, the pharmaceutical company’s own inplant shop is too busy to complete the rush job. Wizard prints a two-or three-color letterhead with an urgent sign on the drug recall notice. "All of the work involves close register, especially getting the pharmaceutical company’s logo correct," explains Keough. "Often we get a quote early, then end up waiting for the job because the FDA needs to approve the typesetting." Another client, a New Jersey concert arena sends posters to be printed at Wizard. Again, the jobs are a rush because the concert promoter is not sure until near the event which bands will be appearing. To expedite all of these rush jobs, Keough has gone against conventional wisdom. Rather than buy one or two large sheet-fed presses and print the jobs one- or two-up, Keough installed eight AB Dick presses with Townsend T-51 heads to mass-produce the jobs. "One big press doesn’t cut it," says Keough. "We set up the AB Dicks like an assembly line. A three-color job comes off one press with two colors printed and it goes into another for the last color. Plus, there is too much makeready on a big press. We have five pressmen that easily operate the presses and always make our deadlines." |
Recently, Wizard invested in Townsend’s new Swing-Away T-51 S-1 to help provide high-quality color and precise registration. The S-1 has On-the-Fly vertical and On-the-Fly horizontal micro adjustments that provide quick setup and register between the two colors. The S-1 provides 30% greater ink capacity allowing larger solids to be run. The segregated water system features an infinite moisture control and oversized distributor roller achieving 25% greater capacity than previous models. "One of the best features on the S-1 is the On-the-Fly adjustments," says Keough. "That option makes a big difference for our company. W can keep the quality on the jobs but we don’t need to stop the press for adjustments. Every time you stop the press, you lose money. We also like the ink coverage and the fact that there is less makeready time." For a shop that is producing such a high volume of quick turnaround jobs, Keough is especially pleased with the new S-1’s productivity. "We used to get 4,000 to 5,000 impressions an hour. Now we get 9,000 to 10,000 impressions an hour with better quality," he says enthusiastically. In addition, the new AB Dick with the S-1 has allowed Wizard to enter the oversize short-run two-color market and perhaps the four-color process market. The shop offers full service to its clients, from design and layout to bindery equipment, such as collators, cutters and a hydraulic drill. Numbering and perforating, which used to be sent out, is now done in-house. With the rise of desktop publishing and computer use, Wizard finds itself providing more disc conversion services as well. "We don’t do any advertising or marketing," says the shop’s president. "We have one salesman who brings in a lot of clients. But we prefer to cater to our well-established accounts to entice more printing from them." The shop’s mix includes black and white, two-, three-, four-and five-color printing, letterheads, catalogs, brochures, newsletters and hospital forms. "Our aim is to service our clients, no matter how quick the turnaround," says Keough |
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