Truepress helps The Printing Department get real with digital print

Sydney business, The Printing Department, installs the state’s first Truepress 344 direct image offset machine.

The long-time offset printer has only this month made the move over to digital printing, beginning first with the installation of a Konica Minolta LD6501. Next week, the Artarmon-based printer takes out the honour of being the first in New South Wales to install a Truepress 344 from Dainippon Screen.

According to Michael Liley, owner of The Printing Department, the purchase of both presses was a result of customer demand for digital. “It was a logical extension of our business,” he said. “We are a traditional offset shop and our customers are increasingly requiring digital printing. Sophisticated, well-run shops like ourselves need a variety of different capabilities.”

The Truepress, which arrives next week, marks a renewal in DI printing. Lilley admitted that “it’s not a widely used machine in Australia? but he believes that its technological features made it a compelling option.

“There have been digital offset presses around for a long time but they didn’t have the ability to provide the quality that our customers were looking for and this one does,” he said.

The Truepress 344 is an A3 four-color offset press that prints 7,000 impressions per hour. An automatic feeder setup enables the operator to print everything from postcards and envelopes to A3-size papers. The Truepress 344 is also fitted with TrueFit Advance, an automatic print quality management system that assists in controlling ink key and dampening solution levels throughout the print run.

Peter Scott of technical sales at Dainippon Screen said that The Printing Department is only the fifth company in the trans-Tasman to install the press. Currently, the Truepress is running throughout Melbourne, Brisbane and New Zealand. “I see a real potential for more sales,” Scott added.

Lilley expects that digital printing will grow, not just in his own business, but in the industry as a whole. “I don’t see how you can run a printing business without some digital capability,” he said.