In 1978, four years after immigrating to the United States, Sid Chinai decided he wanted pursue the American Dream by starting his own business.  And what did he choose? Printing! Sid had no experience in the business, but he and his wife decided to take the leap anyway.

Sid would sell by day and print by night, while his wife manned the mom-and-pop (literally) duplicating shop during the day.

Sid quickly realized by talking to clients and potential clients that there was a significant opportunity in short-run books-even way back then, and he started to produce short-run books in his second year of business.  Some of the binding was done in house with a saddle stitcher and a small perfect binder, while larger items were sent out for binding.

The business did well, and it wasn't long before the Chinais could afford a bigger location, and larger presses and perfect binders. At the time, they were primarily serving the high-tech industry in what some called "Silicon Valley East," competing with the likes of ZBR Publications, KMS, Quebecor and Banta-none of whom are still around, at least in their original form. King Printing, on the other hand, is alive and doing very well.

In the late 1980's, Sid's son Adi joined the business with a degree in Finance, an MBA in operations and a stint at Merrill Lynch as a financial advisor under his belt.  He said, "I left Merrill Lynch because it was not a pursuit I enjoyed, and I ended up joining the family business." Around the same time, the company relocated to its current location on the Lowell Connector, just off of Route 495, for those of you familiar with the Boston area.

It soon became evident that King Printing needed to find a faster way to produce books.  Even back then, people wanted books faster, and in short runs.  If a high tech company needed 50 to 100 manuals for a training class, did it make sense to fire up the offset presses?  King Printing was a beta site for the Xerox DocuTech in 1990, and was an early adopter of other technologies, including peer-to-peer data transfer that enabled clients to upload files directly to a dedicated server.

While short runs were important, there was still a need for offset at the time, and King purchased its first heatset web press in the early 1990's;the company also made investments in desktop publishing beginning in 1995, acquiring a CREO platesetter early in the game and eliminating the inefficiencies associated with film-based platemaking. The heatset web investment meant that runs of 5,000 to 20,000 came off the press in printed, folded signatures, again eliminating steps from the process.

The company now employs 120 people and has revenues of nearly $40 million annually-truly an American success story!

Today, King Printing focuses on three markets: education, trade and self-publishing.  The firm uses digital and offset sheetfed printing for covers and components, and has two HP T-350 production digital inkjet presses and a Screen TruePress Jet 520 (Adi is proud of the fact that King's Screen inkjet press was acquired in 2008-before the first 'inkjet drupa'-and that King was the first U.S. book printer to adopt inkjet printing). Two years ago, the average run length for books at King Printing was 1,200; today it is 150.

In late 2010, HP informed King Printing that they had set a world record in terms of the number of impressions on a T-350 production inkjet press. King invited HP executives to the plant and presented them with a plaque!

As the company made its migration from analog to digital, it invested in heavy training for current employees to move them from obsolete to current jobs, along the way developing an extremely capable and loyal staff.

King also paid a great deal of attention to the front end, determined to automate the production process as much as possible to improve turnaround time and reduce labor, as well as to seamlessly tie its systems in with customer workflows and systems. Its programming team created what Adi describes as "a virtual black box" that used an amalgamation of existing technology and homegrown software,enabling file processing direct to press, in a near-lights-out operation.

They also paid a great deal of attention to finishing, which is nearline and handles saddle stitching, perfect binding and case binding.  During their early years, case binding had always been a smaller part of the company's business and was outsourced.  Today, the firm utilizes highly automated Kolbus Casing-in equipment.  I had the opportunity to watch it in action, and it is very impressive-book blocks and covers in, case bound books out, with no human intervention.  Today, 40% of King's business is case bound books, with 60% being perfect bound.

For self-publishers, King offers what Adi describes as "white glove service," saying, "We don't offer turnkey services. That would diminish the meaning of self-publishing. The authors have to put in the proverbial elbow grease to make their product a success.They do the marketing and distribution, but we give them contacts and references. By doing the legwork, they both save and make money. We also try to guide them not to overproduce."

Adi cites an example of one client that ordered 20,000 books each year for shipment to Africa. "We asked them why they needed so many," he says. "What if they only printed 100 and once those sold, printed more on demand? They knew their market, though, and last year they actually ran out.  We had to air freight additional copies because it would have taken too long to get them there via container.  It is great to be part of that type of success."

King is looking at ways to expand globally.  Adi says, "We have a very strong platform of services in the front end, in production and in the bindery.  Our manufacturing capabilities are second to none, in my biased opinion.  We are dynamic, agile, and our bottom line is driven by our customers' bottom line.  We work hard to drive time to market and customer revenue streams, and that is enabled by our manufacturing platform."

As part of its global expansion efforts, King entered into an alliance with Italy's Rotolito that will enable both companies to better serve their respective customer bases, eliminating unnecessary shipping of heavy printed materials and using a distribute-and-print model instead. "This eliminates a lot of bureaucracy, cost and time," Adi adds, "and is a benefit to our customers' bottom line."

King also participates in an inkjet users group where they help each other in a non-competitive way.

Adi concludes, "We will continue to use technology to push us ahead of the competition. By dynamically tying our systems to those of our customers, we provide a level of support that I have not seen in the marketplace." He admits that a global production platform is not a new idea, but says, "We didn't go into this chasing the dollar.  We went into it based on relationships.  We found the right partners, with the right platforms, and we all have the same common goals.  That alignment is critical; without it, the customer is not well-served."

King Printing is currently working on partnerships in India and China. And Adi spent time at Graph Expo recently talking to other potential partners from among the nearly 3,000 international attendees at the show.

King Printing will be a company to watch as it continues to pursue innovative strategies in the short-run book printing market.