When Chris Madison joined his father in 1978 to manage ColorGraphics, the company employed 40 people and had $4.5 million in sales. Since then the company has grown to four plants—Seattle, San Franciso, Los Angeles and Orange county—with $125 million in yearly sales, and 400 employees.

From the days of two letterpresses, ColorGraphics today has two six-unit half webs, two six-color full webs and ten sheet-fed presses, mostly eight color, equipped with a variety of UV and coater units. A 16-page format, eight-color MAN Roland Rotoman web will come online in Los Angeles by mid-January 2003. Earlier this year ColorGraphics installed an eight-color Komori Lithrone in Orange County.

Each plant consists of a full prepress department and direct-to-plate systems with Creo’s Brisque workflow. All plants are connected with fiber optics and videoconference capabilities. Administration and financials are handled from Los Angles with a Printcafe Hagan O.A. computer system, which handles all information, from estimating to order entry and delivery. All of the plants use a common platform for administration and financial information, and interchangeable manufacturing and printing equipment allows the company to make an interchangeable product.

WTT: What market do your serve?

CM: As a commercial printer we print catalogs, annual reports and car brochures, and we target the entertainment, travel, and financial industries, such as Wells Fargo. We also have many high-tech customers, such as Microsoft.


WTT: Why should a customer use you rather than a competitor and what are the advantages of being a family-owned business?

CM: We are very responsible and are one of largest family-owned printing companies in the U.S. There has been an interaction between families and the print process throughout the history of printing, and family printing concerns have always been attractive to customers. Family-owned companies tend to be more nimble decision makers than corporate owned printers, and in some cases are more customer driven. That’s because they don't have a corporate policy pounded in by the corporation. Often corporate leadership doesn't have much flexibility, while we have on-the-spot decision-making.


WTT: Is that why you have been so successful over the years?

CM: That is one reason. Another reason is that a family business is more dedicated to the long-term success of the organization. We don't make decisions on a quarterly basis like larger companies do. There seems to be a work ethic in family-owned businesses that is more intense than that of public corporations because there are family members throughout the company. The presence of family isn’t just one person, but there are many relatives, uncles, fathers, sons, nephews, and nieces. They intermix well and help create a family culture.


WTT: How did you decide on MAN Roland and Komori for your new press installations?

CM: We had always been a Komori-based business. We like them a lot. We were instrumental in introducing Komori in the western U.S. and put in Komori before anyone else. Our relationship with them is great, and their presses are phenomenal. The new lines they are coming out with are faster, better, and more competitive than other sheet-fed presses. And we are installing eight-color presses because the market expects eight colors. Now, every one of our plants has an eight-color press. That’s all we buy now and have been for the last ten years. That's not a new marketing strategy.

What’s new for us is the full web from MAN Roland with eight units and a single roll stand. Every web we have in the company, up until now, has been a Heidelberg. This is our first MAN Roland. We made the decisions on what we see as a significant improvement over Heidelberg. We like the construction and the print capability of the MAN Roland equipment.


WTT: I understand that a few years ago you got rid of your prepress and bindery department.

CM: Actually we didn’t close our prepress: we have full prepress departments in every plant. However, on the bindery side, we do buy out most bindery. Seven to nine years ago we decided to get out of the bindery business. We wanted to take our capital and put it in printing and prepress and focus on those areas as our core business. We thought this was our strength, and these areas are more sophisticated and demanding. We decided to develop our management skills in printing rather than bindery.


WTT: Few companies have been around as long as ColorGraphics and there have been many changes in the industry recently. Any lessons you would like to share with others?

CM: Know what you do well and just do it. We have tried to stay with the core practice of our business: to look at what do we do best and what needs improvement. Many companies today are trying to reengineer themselves, some out of necessity, like prepress shops becoming printers because their prepress business is going away. Some printers want to become mailing or fulfillment houses and all are looking to do something different. A whole industry is trying to become something that they aren’t, often to survive. We want to take what we have and do it better than anyone does else does, and we are very successful.


WTT: What are the advantages of having multiple plants and give us an example of where that helped in producing a job.

CM: We had a job last year that was done in three plants. Each plant had a capability that was used to complete the total job. It worked out very well, with smooth communication. All the prepress was done in one plant and the files were delivered over our fiber optics Internet to other plants to be printed. It was a huge success. We have a number of projects like this, especially with job sharing, where one plant is busy and another plant can pick up the slack. Because of the commonality of our equipment and because our quality is the same, we can handle jobs like this.


WTT: Printers are dealing with a tough economy today. How do you deal with an economy like this?

CM: It’s very basic. Our economy is driven by supply and demand. We have too much supply and not enough demand. This lack of demand is changing equipment mixes and customer needs. First, a printer has to recognize the change in their customers’ needs. Second, they have to ask, "Can we fulfill those needs?" It is a very simple exercise in supply and demand: Someone will be out of business while someone else will stay in business.

Those who have good principals on how to run a company and how to manufacture great printing will remain in business. You have to be great in print and great in management. Typically, in printing, you don’t see companies—even large companies—which have both of these abilities. Few can run a business as a business and have great printing. They have one but not both. You have to have both today. Those that know this will survive and those who don’t will fail. Just being big doesn't mean that you will make it.


WTT: What is your vision for ColorGraphics?

CM: We are a West Coast organization, and we want to dominate the West Coast. We are looking to move into San Diego, Portland, Sacramento and Fresno - anyplace where we don't already have an operation. We will stay in the same time zone and see if we can be a powerful competitor in our piece of the print world.