Inline Roll Sheeter Feeds JD Graphic’s RMGT 8-color 920 Perfector reducing paper costs by 35%
3rd-generation, Chicago-area commercial print firm rolls through some 125 tons of paper weekly, printing direct mail and books on its four-year-old, sheetfed-offset press.
CLEVELAND, OH – Feb 29, 2024 – RMGT, manufacturer of the leading 8-up sheetfed offset press in North America, announces that JD Graphic, a third-generation, Chicago based commercial printing company, created a new dynamic when they added a roll sheeter to their full-size 8-color RMGT 920 perfecting press. Installed by Graphco, the exclusive RMGT distributor in the midwestern United States, and operational since August 2020, the configuration is the second of its kind in North America featuring a roll sheeter from Quantum Design that converts rolls to sheets inline on the press. The four-over-four perfector also is equipped with LED-UV technology for instant curing.
With three-and-a-half years of history to date, JD Graphic’s team reports doing double the makereadies compared to the 2007 vintage sheetfed device that the newer model replaced. Getting up to color faster translates to less paper waste. “We are saving 35% in paper costs,” explains Nick DeBlasio, Vice President, JD Graphic Co. “When spending between $3 million and $4 million annually on paper purchases, that savings is huge – amounting to somewhere between $1 million and $1.4 million per year!”
“We store four million pounds of paper on the floor at any given time,” explains DeBlasio, whose grandfather (James, Sr.) started the company 61 years ago on Chicago’s historic Printer’s Row. In the early 1970s, he moved his then web-offset presses to the northwest Illinois suburb of Elk Grove Village. Today, JD Graphic’s 49 full-time employees work three full shifts to keep the press busy with work.
“Last year, we mailed more than 125 million pieces,” DeBlasio reports proudly, adding that they go through approximately 250,000 pounds of paper per week. That high volume represents literally tons of direct-mail printing. But self-mailers and postcards are not all that JD Graphic prints. Thanks to the newer press, the firm’s business has been propelled into competing for more book and booklet printing. “Producing book work is much more efficient now,” DeBlasio notes, “because we can run 16-page signatures.”
Full size press with compact footprint
As Derek Gordon, Midwest Regional Manager at Graphco, points out: “Keep in mind that the RMGT 9 Series is a full-size [38”], eight-up printing press that delivers 8½ x11” signatures. Then, there’s the long perfector’s ability to print double-sided to consider. Running 13,000 full-color printed sheets (25x36”) per hour in only one pass through the press can be a big competitive advantage.”
The RMGT 8-UP+ format has an industry leading smaller footprint. This played a role in the choice of JD Graphics, which operates two production facilities totaling 55,000 square feet. “We have space constraints,” acknowledges DeBlasio, who hinted that another building may be added later this year. Post-press finishing work, including folding, gluing and binding, is performed at a nearby location.
JD Graphic’s book volumes have grown to the point of adding a Horizon 270 perfect binder ten months ago. “We put 400,000 books on that machine last year,” DeBlasio says, adding that the post-press department soon may be ready for a multi-clamp version.
Nick DeBlasio concludes that he and his father could not be more pleased with the RMGT 9 Series performance. “We are producing at about half the cost, and our [profit] margins are still good,” he says. “This press has exceeded our expectations by far. All the great things that we heard about it prior to 2020 have been validated.”
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