April 22, 2005 -- KBA North America, a leading sheetfed offset press manufacturer based in Williston, Vt., is announcing that On Demand Imaging., a Portsmouth, New Hampshire printer, has installed a 74 Karat digital offset press with inline aqueous coater in the fall of 2004. “We had outgrown our DI 13 x 18-inch four-color press,” says John Adams, president of On Demand Imaging. “We needed a press that could provide us with higher quality, a larger sheet size, and vivid color. We had heard about the Karat and decided to visit KBA North America’s headquarters in Vermont to see for ourselves.” With one of its most difficult files in hand, Adams and his vice president, Scott Prevost, drove from Portsmouth to nearby Burlington to test the KBA Karat. “We had a killer file that would have scared any printer in the U.S.,” relates Adams. “It had knock-out boxes and small color print. The Karat passed our test with flying colors. We were so impressed with the output of our killer file on the Karat. Before we got home, we had made the decision to buy the press.” The Karat impresses clients with the output of a ‘killer file’ Today, the KBA Karat is drawing new clients and new markets to On Demand Imaging’s fold. Four-color direct mail pieces, promotional advertising, sell sheets, brochures, and catalogs are a few of the jobs being produced on the Karat. Job length varies from just 100 pieces to 100,000. “The Karat is busy all of the time,” says Adams. “We’re producing longer-run jobs that we couldn’t handle before and we’re impressing our clients with a much higher level of quality and a wider variety of substrates to print on. The Karat’s inline coating capability is a huge positive for us both for its quick drying benefits and its appearance. The Karat’s larger sheet size has reduced our turnaround time because we can print a four-up 8 ½ x 11-inch job in half the time it took to be printed on a 13 x 18-inch sheet.” Recently, On Demand Imaging produced a high-quality job on the Karat that would have been impossible on its older presses. A snowboard company needed a 64-page 9 x 12-inch spring 2005 catalog to be sent to 5,000 clients. The perfect-bound catalog was designed with cross-over images that had to match signature to signature with perfect color and registration. The KBA 74 Karat produced the catalog with exact color and registration, making On Demand Imaging and its client extremely happy. Tight registration + metallic inks = superior product “Even though the press is considered four-color, we’ve used it as a six-color,” says Adams. “The Karat has an extremely tight registration that allows us to print a client’s logo twice through the press. We run four-color process front and back then on the second run, we replace the yellow unit with metallic ink and run it with the coater. We produce a superior product due to the 74 Karat.” On Demand Imaging bills itself as a one-stop shop for printing, large format production, scanning, and finishing. In addition to the 74 Karat, the firm operates a wide format printer that produces large format posters up to 59.5" wide by 100 ft. long on a variety of substrates such as photobase paper, polycarb, polyester, vinyl, canvas, and silk. The firm’s two-color 13 x 18-inch press is used to produce letterhead and business cards. Formula for success: One-stop shopping “People are becoming busier and busier,” says Adams. “They are searching to produce a job in the least number of steps. By having the KBA 74 Karat as well as our wide format imaging, small format digital imaging, and finishing capabilities, we’re able to offer the complete package. In the beginning, people pigeon-holed us as not being printers. We had to change their perception that we offered digital offset on the Karat, not digital printing. Now we’re able to take a trade show job and produce the wide format posters and displays, the sell sheets and brochures on the Karat, and the letterhead and business cards too.” Since the Karat’s installation, Adams has been extremely impressed with KBA’s service and training. “KBA flew the Karat in from Germany,” says Adams, “and their training has been phenomenal. That’s especially important for a small firm like ours that needs to keep our presses up and running. Even today if we need help with the press, KBA will send a technician out for a week. I know from prior experience that that is not the case with other press manufacturers. KBA is a pleasure to deal with and their service and training are top-notch.”