Beaverton, Oregon — Paramount Graphics, one of the fastest growing printers in the West, celebrated its latest expansion recently with an open house reception that attracted more than 275 print buyers and graphic arts executives. The September 18th and 19th event centered on Paramount’s new MAN Roland 700, a six-color model with an in-line double coating unit. The 41-inch press was installed last spring. It demonstrated its capabilities during the open house, running a project for telecommunications leader T-Mobile. "We chose the Roland 700 because of its technology and its ability to bring the state of the art into our pressroom," says Bob Wilks, President & CEO. "The reaction of our guests at the open house confirmed that we made the right choice," Wilks adds. "In fact we picked up several new accounts as a result of the event. But that’s not surprising, since the Roland 700 has been winning us new business since we started running it." Wilks cites the press’ proficiency with color as a key attraction for print buyers: "Customers are very impressed with the way the 700 holds and maintains color regardless of how long or how complicated the job. It’s exceeding the standards we had before. We’ve gotten a number of new accounts because of the ability of this press to hold tight color." The versatility of the press is another job magnet, according to Douglas Stevens, Vice President and General Manager at Paramount. "We like the 700’s ability to quickly go from printing bible stock to 40 point board and back again," he says. "That’s important to us because about 50 percent of the work we put on it are packaging jobs and the other 50 percent is commercial printing." Wilks notes that the company’s talent for handling a diversity of work is keeping Paramount Graphics growing at a time when other printers are having trouble filling their presses. "Being diversified and not just working in one market has always been one of our strengths," he explains. "That’s why Paramount Graphics provides multiple printing capabilities under one roof — commercial printing, print on demand and package printing/converting." That proverbial roof is rapidly expanding as well. Over the last two years, Paramount has grown its total production footage from 40,000 to 120,000 sq ft. As to the success of the open house, Wilks thanks his staff for making it a business-winning event: "You need to have 100 percent participation from every member of the company." He also praises MAN Roland for helping to demonstrate the capabilities of the Roland 700. The live-action press tour emphasized the functionality of JobPilot and PressMonitor, new PECOM modules that recently received the 2002 InterTech Award. "JobPilot automatically sets up the next project while the current job is running," Stevens explains. "That’s saving us about 10 minutes on every makeready we perform." Wilks comments that the press’ performance not only brought in new accounts, but also made an impression on many of his long-term clients. "Some of our regular customers had not toured our shop for three or four years," he says. "They got a chance to see our increase in capacity, and they liked what they saw in our new Roland 700."