The Dandenong South-based company that installed the first of the B2-size digital presses in Australia from the Currie Group has backed up for another bite of the cherry.
Aldo Burcheri and Michael Vojvodic, the owning partners of Courtney Colour , are gaining a reputation for being technology trailblazers as they add another Indigo 10000 and a Zund flat-bed cutter to create a unique digital print production line. Blending the two technologies together gives the innovative marketing service printer a valuable point of differentiation in the market.
“We’re an innovative printing business operating in the marketing space. It’s important that we continue to develop cross media opportunities including email and SMS campaigns for our clients to go with their printing,” said Burcheri.
“When we bought the business we could have continued producing commodity printed product but it wouldn’t have a future beyond three to five years. We saw that the print runs are reducing and that’s not going to stop. If we want the Courtney Colour brand to continue for another 30 years it means we have to take calculated risks.”
One of these was to plunge into digital production with the installation of two HP Indigo presses, a move that has completely altered the company’s dynamic. According to Burcheri, HP Indigos are not ‘speed machines’ compared to offset but offer their own unique advantages.
“Look, you don’t buy an Indigo for speed. If what you want to do is print lots of the same sheets it’s a silly investment. We see it more for new markets, short runs, with a lot of versioning print. There may be a run of 5000 catalogues for 50 stores but not every store carries the same range. There can be up to ten different versions of the same printed product within that run,” he said.
Cutting to form
In the same way, the requirement for finishing the print is not predicated on high-speed production. B2-size posters, custom packaging and point-of-sale materials often require complex cutting to produce customized shapes. The need for sophisticated finishing to handle the B2 size led the partners to explore flat-bed options. They quickly came to the decision that the Zünd S3 M800 technology is almost tailor-made for their type of digital printing.
“Apart from the quality of the cutting and creasing, what attracted us was the ability to stack up the B2 sheets as they came off the Indigo, then auto-feed them two-up onto the Zünd S3,” said Burcheri.
The computerised workflow means the print can be loaded and left unattended, especially as more Courtney Colour customers are delivering their jobs with finishing instructions embedded in the file. Operating with Print IQ MIS and Pageset pre-production workflow, the drive is on to make the throughput as efficient as possible.
“It’s important to reduce the number of touch points in the process. If we can automate the workflow it means the Zünd can be left to run without constant attendance,” said Burcheri.
Given the type of customized print, some created using DirectSmile software, the Zünd S3 can be left cutting through sheets of 400gsm board, two up, without anyone in attendance. It’s the versatility of the process that continues to impress. It can be configured for kiss-cutting/through-cutting, routing, creasing, and marking. The Swiss-made Zünd is recognised as one of the most versatile in the digital cutting space. Backed by Starleaton in Australia, it can handle an almost unlimited range of materials.
Bedding down their impressive amount of digital firepower means the Courtney Colour partners will be staying close to the business in the immediate future. Big fans of Dscoop, their attendance at last year’s US conference opened many options – it’s where Burcheri first saw the Zünd S3.
Courtney Colour made contact with Peter Wood at Starleaton who was instrumental in helping the partners develop the best configured Zünd for their needs. Burcheri says: “The Zünd has been a fantastic investment that has delivered on all it promised to be. We will continue to develop products that are truly unique and complement the digital age.”