The RMGT Commit to Print World Tour kicked off last week in St. Louis! Advertisers Printing co-hosted the event for a day of printing, and a night of dinner, music, and prizes!

Celebrating sheetfed-offset printing, RMGT’s “Commit to Print” World Tour kicked off last week in St. Louis, Mo.

The rock-n-roll themed events are taking place in six cities, featuring seven plants and 10 sheetfed offset presses over the next six months. The U.S. arm of the tour culminates with live press demos in Las Vegas in October—during the industry’s big PRINTING United tradeshow.

The events demonstrate live how automated, RMGT sheetfed-offset print technology is expanding the possibilities of high-quality, offset reproduction at commercial printers, packaging printers, trade shops and online printers across the United States.

The events will demonstrate live how the RMGT 9 & RMGT 10 Series presses are expanding the possibilities of high-quality offset print at commercial printers, packaging printers, trade shops, and online printers across the US. Each event will also feature a free “Rock & Roll” themed evening event that will be held for all attendees.

“'Commit to Print' allows us to showcase some of our newest press offerings,” said Kozac Takata, manager of international sales/marketing for RMGT (RYOBI HMI Graphic Technology Ltd.), “such as the new 10 Series Performance Package and the new 970 press.”

On Cinco de Mayo, the St. Louis print-o-sphere symbolized the possible “iron” archway to increased profits for some 20 RMGT customers gathered at the plant of Advertisers Printing Co., where they gawked at the fully automated, 10-color 9 Series perfecting press. Post-plant, off-site evening entertainment featured pop/rock dance music by The Champagne Fixx band. More prospects will be on hand in mid-June in Chicago, which is the next leg of the tour.

The Daytime Opener & The Main Event!

“We are seeing a surge in interest of commercial printers who need to upgrade their aging sheetfed offset press operations,” said Kian Hemmen, director of sales for Print and Finishing Solutions, RMGT’s Western U.S. distributor. “We conceived the ‘Commit to Print’ World Tour to allow regional events for printers to see our presses in a production environments. Our guests are able to see the live production of a wide gamut of printing applications on a wide range of presses.”

“We are excited to include the PRINTING United event in Las Vegas as part of the RMGT ‘Commit to Print’ World Tour,” added Graphco president Chris Manley. “RMGT’s commitment to live press  demonstrations during large industry events continues in 2022 with the North American launch of our new 8-UP+ RMGT 970 offset press. Our ability to install an eight-color, 8-up press for a three-day show is testimony to one of the additional benefits of the RMGT 9 Series press: the smallest footprint of an eight-page sheetfed offset press in the industry.”

The new RMGT 970 press also features the latest in offset press technology with instant LED-UV curing and greatly reduced makeready with the introduction of Automated Smart Assist Printing (ASAP). Over 80% of RMGT 9 Series presses running in North America are manned with a single press operator.

“We are thrilled that the 'Commit to Print' World Tour will have stops at plants that have recently  installed the RMGT 10 Series press and the new RMGT 970 offset press,” said Lloyd Molloy, director of customer service at RM Machinery, the RMGT distributor for Canada and authorized sales and service for new RMGT 10 Series and legacy Mitsubishi presses in North America. “RMGT is satisfying a pent-up demand for new presses combined with state-of-the-art technology to assist packaging printers. By the time we get together at PRINTING United, we will have sold and installed at least four new RMGT 10 Series presses along with three of the new 8-UP+ RMGT 970 presses at packaging plants and commercial printers doing light packaging printing in the U.S. It appears that the RMGT 9 and RMGT 10 Series are the right presses, at the right price, at the right time.”

The tour rolls on at night with dinner, drinks, prizes and some Rock & Roll for an experience you won't want to miss right in your area!

“Commit to Print” Tour Schedule

May 5: St. Louis

June: Chicago

July: Lancaster, Pa.

August: Los Angeles

October 19: Las Vegas

December: Tokyo (at RMGT’s world headquarters)

The Tour in St. Louis ends with dinner, drinks, prizes and some Rock & Roll at a legendary local Tap House with skyline views and featuring STL's Dance Pop/Rock band, Champagne Fixx! 

Advertisers Printing Gets into Heavy Metal

Founded in 1923, Advertisers Printing in St. Louis is a hybrid blend of print. Traditional, offset printing generates some 65% of its more than $10 million in annual sales, while digital print jobs comprise the remaining 35%.

Running on the company’s 7,000-sq.ft. production floor, Advertisers’ 10-color, 9 Series perfector (5/5), featuring LED-UV curing technology, was one of the first of its kind installed in North America some 20 months ago. The press was purchased through RMGT’s Midwest/Southeast distributor Graphco and delivered in September 2020. 

Senior sales VP John Heaney said that the commercial printing company employs 42 people running two full shifts—but only one and a quarte for the 10-color press.

“It’s hungry,” he said, jokingly calling the 9 Series “the largest shop vac in the building. We don’t worry about the printing portion—production bottlenecks come on the back end in the bindery, etc.”

“What the RMGT does is help to fill the capacity throughout our shop, including [in] our digital area," said Business Developer Alex Fechner. “This has been a really good synergistic situation, because the 10-color RMGT 9 Series press is equipped with LED-UV curing technology. We have more flexibility to print shells LED offset and then run those shells on our [20/29”] HP Indigo 10000 Digital Press to handle large, variable-data runs.”

Lean and Green Production

Why invest a million dollars in a new, efficient offset press? Think of the decision as a down payment on the company’s future survival, Heaney said. 

“Three machines [legacy presses] exited and were replaced by one,” he said. “It frees up space and opens up square footage.”

Plus, with the RMGT model, Advertisers makes ready on 10 units in 12 minutes, which he believes is “insane,” adding that makereadies on their old press used to take 90 minutes for half as many units. 

Part of the economic justification involves labor hours, of course. For this union shop, the RMGT perfecting press’ one-pass capability translates to nearly three times the throughput of its vintage six-color, 29” model. 

“We now run in 10 hours what took 22 hours previously,” Heaney said.

“The RMGT 9 Series perfecting press has improved our print quality and speed to market with products that offer the lowest carbon footprint,” Fechner said.

Heaney, who doubles as Advertisers Printing’s sustainability director, likes the fact that the LED (light-emitting diode) technology employed by the RMGT perfecting press “has 1/10th the energy

footprint of a conventional, arc-lamp UV press.” As much as possible, he and the sales teamdiscourage clients from coating their print jobs, even though the press has coating capabilities.

“Eliminating coating lowers a job’s VOC [volatile organic compounds] footprint by 30%,” Heaney said. “Ammonia, water and silicon are not harmless.”

Heaney takes sustainability seriously, frowning on paper cartons, too.

“We request that paper orders be delivered in full skids whenever possible,” he said.

Advertisers Printing is the first print service provider in Missouri certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the only printer in the state to be certified by the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP).