Bennett Graphics is absolutely one of the more amazing printing companies we have visited. Not only is it a family-owned printing company, but it also prides itself with hundreds of awards and prizes for being the best printer. The awards come from hard work and dedication, as well as the will and ability to invest in the newest and latest technology.

You see the newest Scodix, Highcon, and HP equipment along with offset presses and binding equipment. Great company, great people – and this film were made in a very special way. More about that on INKISH.NEWS.

Thanks to Adair Hall and Adam Seiz for making this together!

It seemed like nothing at all happened. And suddenly we had a a hundred thousand on the floor. Since last time we we’ve had a number of cool automation projects come into play. we we’ve finished a big estimating integration with our storefronts and our MIS, so we can go directly from a quote so we can get directly from a quote request directly into a alive estimate in our system with a real quote letter, that’s ready to be turned into a job.

so that was an exciting thing to sort of roll out. we’ve installed a new press, the a 100K, which we’ve all been very excited about. we’ve got a lot, a lot of things going on right now. You know, we’ve been given this kind of Lowell and sales as, as we, as everybody recovers from COVID, we’re trying really hard to use this time to rebuild our processes and our infrastructure the way we really want it to be.

so that’s, that’s kept me personally, extremely busy doing that.
Well, we’ve, we’ve seen a shift in the way sales are happening now. you know, we’ve, we track very closely the market sectors that we sell into and what we’ve noticed. you know, of course a lot of the restaurants are, are way down. You know, a lot of the financial and technology sectors are way up, you know, the consumables that we print, so labels for beer bottles or vitamins or whatever thing like that.
those have actually had a small uptick as well, which is nice to see. Yeah, just the, the, the mix of work has really changed.

It’s it’s definitely been a hit to revenue there. There’s no doubt about that. We’re without giving the exact number, we’re pretty low on sales right now, but we’re, we’re doing a lot of things to, you know, stay lean, you know, with our schedules and how we’re, we’re kind of, we’re taking a new approach to how we’re buying paper and just trying to be extremely conservative with the funds we have.
to, to save for as much as we can. we’re focused on invoicing faster to get paid more quickly and things like that. So

I knew it’d been coming for a little while. but the first time we announced it was just weeks before installation internally to our, our, Company, we had only really talked about it very briefly before installation started.
We have, quite a bit of experience installing new presses lately. so it wasn’t really disruptive at all. we, crew from HP handled all, all of that, right. So. they removed the 10,000 guys showed up wearing masks and gloves and, installed the a hundred thousand. And it seemed like nothing at all happened.

And suddenly we had a a hundred thousand on the floor.

Yes. The, the, the a 100K replaces quite a lot of work. It’s it’s 30% faster than the 10,000 was. It’s replacing some offset work. We’re going to 6,000 sheets an hour on a digital machine. So it’s. It’s a serious contender for a lot of our shorter run offset work.

Having the digital department as a whole allows us to be competitive with turn times sometimes going into a new client that is a pain point for them.
Their current print provider can not provide for them quick enough. So having the multiple digital presses that we do have here at Bennett allows us to offer that quicker turn time for them, but also giving them that. That quality that is very comparable to offset print and produces just as beautiful pieces.
Sometimes we, I do have some clients who just love the quality of offset print. but then I’m able to go into our press room and have their, their art files printed, a test print, on digital. And they seem to always be very impressed with the outcome and the quality of all of our digital presses. I know our digital department works really hard to create the highest quality to where it can be very comparable, and even hard to tell the difference between an offset printed piece and a digital print piece.

Well, first mover advantage is very important to us. it’s important for us to be the first in technologies that we feel will be important to the marketplace. It’s why we got the first installation of the 10,000 it’s while we have the first Scodix that could do foil in the U S it’s while we have the Highcon you know, the.
First mover advantage is, is very real.

We have a lot of heavy lifting variable data that we do day in and day out. And so, you know, they’re their long runs. it, it just, the economy of scale is perfect with the a hundred thousand it’s, you know, we, we need a fast machine. There’s not a lot of gimmicks and fancy effects that it’s doing.
It’s just a, production monster.

Yes, it’s the whole thing. It’s a whole different frame. This thing is based on. So, it does deliver exceptional color, which is, you know, as I mentioned in our last interview, the absolute minimum for what we expect, you know, we, we, every printer now expects excellent, outstanding quality. And, with the new ink system on this machine, it does a really good job of delivering that despite the 6,000 sheets an hour speed.

With each scenario, it’s a little bit different. obviously with very, very, you know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands pieces, that will always be a great option for, for those to run on offset. and our offset presses as, you know, create, just an outstanding high quality print. So sometimes that is the best route to run it.

Digital just allows us to run those smaller quantities that are still in the mid range, you know? Upper thousands, but not into the hundreds thousands, that before these larger indicas, the 10,000, 12,000 a 100K now, it would be just no doubt, run it offset, but now this gives us the ability to run it digitally and it saves or make ready time.

And as you had mentioned, it, reduces waste with plates and even make ready, press sheets.

It does live up to expectations. Our costs are significantly different on that machine because again, the 30% run speed impacts everything, you know? So the more digital volume that we can push towards is a hundred K that the better we are as a plant in the. The more efficient we are in the more money we save.
we, we try to is, is part of our overall workflow. It’s important to estimate on the presses that it’s actually going to land on and, and have, have the job ticket read correctly for the presses it’s going to actually land on. And so we’re having to make some adjustments to figure out how we can have that press be the one that is indeed scheduled and quoted without having a significant change to work pricing or accidentally go up or down on a customer’s price, you know, to deliver a consistent number.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. when working with digital projects that raises the, I guess, quantity of print projects, like I mentioned earlier, the lower quantity pieces that are more unique and more personalized, that is what makes the digital presses so competitive and, awesome choices for our clients to use.

Okay. Because they’re not that flexibility. There’s usually just more quantity of jobs that come from from digital because they’re lower quantity themselves, if that makes sense. So, but with that, we’re a little run, you know, five jobs in the same time that one job would be on the offset press. So definitely you can, you can make just as much money, if not more, just with, with more projects, run more projects in the same amount of time.

Automation Journey & Software Mix · Adam Se...

6 Dec 2020