EMBRACING PRINT’S ART & SCIENCE: RMGT 9 Series Perfector Helps Business Flourish at Verdant Graphics
Michigan printer of wholesale greeting cards adds sheetfed-offset capacity in hopes of developing commercial print business.
SOLON, OH – July 23, 2024 – Graphco, the Exclusive Distributor for RMGT’s most popular 970, 920 and 790 offset presses throughout the Midwest and Southeast, announces the positive results of the installation of an eight-color full-size RMGT 928PF perfecting press to Verdant Graphics in Wyoming, MI, six miles south of Grand Rapids. The 38-inch press, which features LED-UV instant-curing technology, is enabling the firm to churn out greeting cards at least eight times faster than its previous workflow from 2022.
“Our previous print production was on a digital press,” states Don Kalil, owner and chief vision officer at Verdant Graphics. “We had to print two-up greeting cards on one side, let dry for two days, then run the other side. It took us four days to print two cards. Now, not only is the RMGT 9 Series perfector a larger format press, but it prints both sides in a single pass. We are printing eight cards at a time. They dry instantly and are ready for finishing.” Verdant’s in-house postpress/embellishment capabilities include die-cutting, embossing and foil-stamping for special effects.
Kalil figures that, when UV curing time is equated, the speedy increase could be by a factor of 10 or even 12 times faster overall. Such dramatic performance improvement means that Verdant is producing cards quicker and in much larger volumes, freeing up press time for other commercial print work. Their 15,000-square-foot production facility in western Michigan employs 15 full-time workers, “mostly working one shift,” according to Kalil. However, he sees that changing. “We’d like to be running two shifts by the end of 2024 and grow to three down the road. That’s my goal.” To stimulate sales, the management team hired a dedicated account representative this spring and plans to soon hire two more people in similar roles.
Eco-friendly with designer roots
Kalil’s creative roots stem from the graphic design and marketing side of the business. He also presides over Design Design, which started up in 2010 as a wholesale greeting card company with an in-plant print shop. “We used small-format duplicators at first,” he remembers.
“Verdant,” the rebranded print arm, denotes “green,” and Kalil admits to being extremely conscious of printing sustainably. “We are all about having a minimal environmental footprint,” he explains, adding that the LED-UV technology first caught his eye six years ago in Chicago at GRAPH EXPO ’18. (The printing tradeshow now is called PRINTING United.) He contends that employing the high-tech drying process “is much cleaner than operating a [spray] powdered system.”
Still, adopting RMGT’s one-pass solution was a major, multimillion-dollar decision for the Verdant leader. Coming from a quarter-size digital press, “it took us a little while to get our ‘groove’ on,” Kalil admits. After 18 months of operation, the RMGT 9 Series perfector is running smoothly, “like a Lexus,” so it’s full steam ahead for his new salesforce.
On plant tours, Kalil proudly calls the RMGT press his “command center for spaceship printing.” Despite looking like a UFO, its benefits are easily identifiable. On-press registration is virtually infallible, he notes, adding that installation of the full-size machine was relatively painless in early 2023. “A six-inch concrete pad is all it requires,” Kalil confirms. “It’s built on metal rails, and there’s no bouncing.”
For Kalil, the automation built in by RMGT’s engineers is a major bonus. “These days, machinery can’t be too technically challenging to operate,” he says.
“You don’t need a lot of people to run this press. It’s actually really fun . . . and exciting to see what it can produce! The end products give our people a great sense of pride in their work.”
Derek Gordon, Graphco’s midwest regional manager, reflects: “This was a very rewarding sale for me, personally, because of the timing.” Verdant’s purchase came through only four days after the country shut down in response to the COVID-19 health crisis. That now seems like a long time ago – when the company was basically a marketing firm that produced its own greeting cards. If the visionary Kalil has his way, Verdant Graphics will position itself very differently in the not-too-distant future as evolution transforms it into a completely different entity.
If you would like to learn more about how the RMGT 970 Press could benefit you, fill out the following form.
