Walsh Colour Print adds 5th Machine

WALSH COLOUR PRINT ADDS ITS FIFTH KOMORI PRESS IN SEVEN YEARS BY INVESTING IN 5-COLOUR LITHRONE S29 PRESS

20th December 2006: Not many companies can claim to have installed five Komori presses in the past 7 years – but Walsh Colour Print (Castleisland, County Kerry, Eire) has. This thriving company has just added a new 5-colour Lithrone S29 B2 press with coater to its line up comprising of a B1 8-colour Lithrone LS840 Perfector, a 10-colour B2 NL1028 Perfector and two 4-colour Lithrone 426s.

The company provides a highly successful trade service to printers throughout Ireland and the UK. Its slogan and philosophy is ‘If you stand still you will be overtaken’ and the company has certainly not kept still for a moment! Walsh Colour has maintained an impressive growth rate over the past nine years.

The company has brought coating in-house for the first time with its new Komori Lithrone S 529. The Lithrone 29, launched at Ipex, features the highest level of automation Komori has ever offered to the B2 market, including a completely new, fully-automatic, plate changing system as standard. The press’s ability to change four plates in 150 seconds and achieve a high-speed, six minute changeover from one job to the next with automatic ink key setting via on-press CIP4 data evaluation allows Walsh Colour to handle even the shortest run lengths very competitively.

“It’s a very simple formula really,” explains MD Tony Walsh. “We are very proactive and are continually asking our clients what they need from a trade service and we ensure we deliver it in terms of quality, price and deadlines. The choice of press is absolutely critical. In order to be highly competitive we have to be able to increase our capacity and productivity, but not our costs. Komori’s perfecting performance, ease of operation, slick make ready capabilities and streamlined automation is very important to ensure we can achieve this goal.”

This investment is a perfect example of how a company is maximising the capabilities of Komori technology. “Walsh Colour really does make the most of our automation features in every sense and it shows in their ongoing success,” says Neil Sutton, MD of Komori UK.

The 70-strong Walsh Colour factory is in full production 24 hours a day, seven days a week handling run lengths from 200-500,000. “To achieve our targets we have to keep our presses fully occupied as much as we can and Komori’s reliability is fantastic,” points out Mr Walsh. “The presses just don’t break down.”

“Everything is geared to printing and finishing quickly, hence the focus on perfecting presses and the ability to seal and coat to ensure fast drying and quality results,” adds Mr Walsh. He is already looking to future expansion: “We have room for five or six more presses here which gives us great potential going forward.”

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