Addison, Ill. – RMGT is proud to announce the successful installation of the RMGT 9 Series press in early June 2020, at VISOgraphic, a leading commercial printer based in the greater Chicago, IL area. In spite of the recent economic downturn, VISOgraphic took delivery of the RMGT 9 Series 5-color press with coater and LED-UV curing technology as part of their strategic plan tuned for growth. The press was installed by Graphco, the Distributor of RMGT offset presses in the Midwest and Southeastern US.

“People have asked us why we continued on with our investment in this kind of climate,” states Robert Dahlke, Jr., Business Development, VISOgraphic. “Talking to my brother, my father and my industry peers, we believe that short-term problems in the economy or problems caused by COVID-19 should not affect our long-term strategies. Was there an opportunity for us to walk away from the install? Probably. However, we decided that now's the time to lead and not step back. I think that companies that have invested wisely in their equipment, and the ones that are customer centric, are going to see the benefit in the back half of this year. We think that investing now is going to pay dividends, not only at the end of this year, but going into 2021 and beyond.” The observations of the Dahlke’s are available on video at https://bit.ly/VISOgraphic 

The strategic decision of the VISOgraphic management team to upgrade aging offset equipment had its genesis from feedback from their nationwide peer group. “One of the biggest things that we do is interact with a peer group,” continues Dahlke. “Our peer group came into our plant about four years ago and they said we had great machinery, but it was older and inefficient. So, we took a really hard look at the offset market and we decided that LED-UV and RMGT was the way to go. Our first investment was an RMGT 10 Series 40-inch press. Two and a half years and over 81 million impressions later, the feedback from the peer group was validated. As we've been expanding the last few years, we wanted to make our arsenal more redundant and wanted to expand capacity, so the RMGT 9 Series was the perfect choice in this environment.”

VISOgraphic continues a growing trend of commercial printers who leverage offset lithography as a cost-effective print production process for short-run static jobs. The RMGT 9 Series press fits a unique space between the 40-inch press and conventional digital printing. “The RMGT 9 Series was the perfect fit for our company because we could put 65% of our existing work from the 40-inch press and put it on the 9 Series at a cheaper cost per sheet,” comments John Dahlke, Chief Operating Officer. VISOgraphic is seeing that longer runs are printed on the RMGT 10 Series 40-inch press. However, more and more of the shorter run, non-personalized printing is transferring from digital back to offset and run more economically and with greater flexibility on the RMGT 9 Series press.

“The reason why we're moving more short-run static jobs to offset is because the efficiency of these RMGT presses is so amazing,” observes Bob Dahlke, Jr. “The LED-UV curing has the sheets ready to go from a converting and bindery perspective as soon as they're done. For VISOgraphic, we look at the offset and digital complementing each other. We are definitely not a company that says offset is here and digital is there. For us, the crossover is very close now and we marry them up very closely. At the end of the day, our offset versus digital decisions are based on client needs --- whatever will benefit them the most. The RMGT 9 Series press with LED-UV gives us more flexibility to print more jobs in the offset environment at a unique price point. Successful companies our size must have great synergies between their digital and offset presses. The 9 Series press will actually create more offset AND digital work for us.”

LED-UV curing technology has widened the product offering for many commercial printers, allowing them to print on different substrates. “One of the great things about RMGT LED-UV and our relationship with Graphco is that it has gotten us to new products and offerings,” observes Dahlke. “We're printing things now that three years ago, there's no way we could have printed. Anywhere from static window clings, to 30 mil PVC, to all different kinds of synthetics and plastics for maps and many other uses. I was talking to my brother a couple of months ago and he said thank goodness we went with RMGT and we went LED-UV. We're getting a lot of jobs that we would not have gotten if we continued printing traditional offset with an IR dryer. It's been a game changer for new products.”

“We are particularly proud that VISOgraphic has become the first commercial shop in North America with both the RMGT 10 Series and RMGT 9 Series press,” states Derek Gordon, Graphco’s Midwest Regional Manager. “The Midwest market is very competitive for Chicago-based commercial printers, and we are proud to be aligned with VISOgraphic, who we consider a strategic partner.”