Kennesaw, GA -- Book manufacturer Thomson-Shore, Inc., Dexter, MI improved its capacity by 10 percent as soon as it replaced an existing Speedmaster 74 4-color press with a brand-new Speedmaster SM 102 6-color perfector. That was just the beginning. According to Carl Trisdale, press/prepress manager, the new press also has enabled Thomson-Shore to reduce the number of shifts running four-color process work from four to as few as one, and to produce in-house the four-color text and insert jobs it had previously (and expensively) farmed out. At the same time, Trisdale reported, the company’s average production speed has improved by 100 percent, along with its productivity on four-color covers and jackets.
 
“Covers and jackets we used to run at 150 line screen we now run at 300 line screen and the colors just pop,” Trisdale said. “We’ve even fingerprinted our older press (a Speedmaster SM 74 perfector) to the new Speedmaster.” The company also has a two-color Speedmaster SM 102.
 
Trisdale is hard-pressed to name just one feature of the new machine that pleases him the most, although he cites the Speedmaster’s mark-free perfecting as a “big advantage,” along with the seamless interaction of the Press Center console and nonstop Preset Plus feeder that adjusts automatically to format and printing stock.
 
Following “one of the easiest, fastest startups ever,” Thomson-Shore’s operators were trained and running within three weeks, and running production numbers within two months, Trisdale said. “The operators are excited about new opportunities for our company with the additional flexibility the new six color press has to offer.”
 
As an expert book manufacturer, Thomson-Shore prints and binds both perfect bound (paper back or soft cover) and case bound books for university presses, religious institutions and many trade publishers, with a specialty in short- to medium run volumes.  The company, which has been in business for 37 years, employs a workforce of 260 and is employee owned.