By Lance Martin, VP of Product Marketing, Komori America
Founded in 1941 as Sun Lithographing and Printing by Ed Hall, Sun Print Solutions has spent more than eight decades adapting to the changing demands of the print industry. What began as a traditional offset and lithography operation has steadily evolved into a modern, diversified print provider serving packaging, commercial, and digital markets.
A pivotal moment came in 2014, when Sun Lithographing merged with Rastar Digital Printing and Progressive Direct Mail Advertising. The merger expanded the company’s capabilities beyond offset printing, bringing digital printing and mailing under one roof and establishing the organization now known as Sun Print Solutions.
Today, Sun Print Solutions employs approximately 130 people and operates across nearly 100,000 square feet of production space. Its business is built around three core pillars: folding carton packaging, commercial offset printing, and digital printing with direct mail advertising. This diversified structure allows the company to support a wide range of customer needs while balancing short-run digital work with longer-run offset and packaging production.
In 2019, the company entered a new chapter when Sarah and Jennifer, fourth-generation employees, purchased the business. Since then, Sun Print Solutions has undergone a significant transformation. Over the past six years, the company has invested millions of dollars in new equipment, tools, and production technologies, with a clear focus on improving efficiency and creating a better working environment for employees.
Those investments have delivered measurable results. Since the ownership transition, Sun Print Solutions has doubled its revenue, a milestone that leadership attributes to a combination of cultural focus, technology upgrades, and expanded production capabilities.
“We’ve invested heavily in making the lives of our employees easier and giving them tools they feel confident using,” Jennifer Pettinger said. “That investment shows in the products we deliver, and customers can see it.”
Hybrid Production as a Competitive Advantage
While demand for digital printing continues to grow, Sun Print Solutions has seen sustained and even increased demand for offset printing. Rather than viewing digital and offset as competing technologies, the company treats them as complementary tools within a hybrid production strategy.
That philosophy drove the decision to invest in a new offset press while retaining an existing six-color Komori press. The addition of the new Komori GL840Pa + C Convertible Perfector press has allowed Sun Print Solutions to consolidate work previously split across two presses onto a single, more efficient production line.
The transition has also reshaped how press crews work. Operators who previously focused primarily on packaging jobs, including heavier board stocks, are now working alongside teams experienced in perfecting and signature work. As a result, operators are learning new skills, from inline coating to handling a broader range of substrates and job types.
Packaging work, which often involves PMS colors, coatings, and tighter quality expectations, has introduced a more detail-oriented mindset across the pressroom. At the same time, high-speed commercial and signature work has reinforced efficiency and throughput discipline. The convergence of these skill sets has helped create more versatile operators and a more flexible production environment.
“Our crews are stepping up to the challenge,” leadership noted. “They’re learning the technology quickly and finding new ways to take advantage of the larger press format and inline capabilities.”
Speed, Quality, and Faster Turnarounds
Speed and quality remain central priorities for Sun Print Solutions, particularly as customer expectations continue to shift toward faster turnaround times. Leadership points to the broader “instant gratification” economy as a constant pressure on printers, one that requires ongoing investment in technology to remain competitive.
Since installing the new press, the company has seen substantial reductions in makeready times. Job changeovers that once took up to 30 minutes are now completed in just a few minutes, allowing schedules to move faster and increasing overall capacity. The result is more jobs completed per shift and greater pressure, in a positive sense, on sales teams to keep the pressroom fully utilized.
The company has also begun exploring new applications enabled by its upgraded press technology. One recent project involved printing a perfect-bound book using specialty plates across the entire job. While the plates added some upfront cost, the approach eliminated multiple offline processes and reduced production time by approximately a week.
For the customer, the job arrived earlier than expected. For Sun Print Solutions, the project demonstrated how new technology can streamline workflows while maintaining cost balance. Leadership views this type of experimentation as essential, not only for attracting new work, but also for keeping press operators engaged and challenged.
“Press operators can get bored doing the same work every day,” leadership said. “As we continue to experiment and learn, they’re excited to figure out new processes and applications.”
Investing in the Future
For Sun Print Solutions, reinvestment is not optional. Leadership has watched other companies struggle or close after failing to modernize equipment and expand capabilities. By contrast, Sun Print Solutions has introduced new equipment, product lines, and opportunities year after year.
Employees have noticed the difference. One team member with decades of industry experience described the plant as fundamentally different from previous operations, citing continuous investment, expanding capabilities, and a culture focused on growth rather than maintenance.
Looking ahead, Sun Print Solutions plans to continue refining its hybrid production strategy, leveraging both offset and digital technologies to meet evolving customer needs. By focusing on speed, quality, and operational flexibility, the company aims to remain competitive across commercial, packaging, and direct mail markets for years to come. Take a look at the video testimonial:
