Rolling Meadows, IL—Komori America—Komori America announces that Color Craft Graphic Arts, a leader in folding carton packaging based in Wisconsin, has invested in a 40-inch, six-color Lithrone G40 (GL640 advance), scheduled to be installed this month. Color Craft offers structural design and sample-making, pre-press and printing, die-cutting and finishing as a single source solution for companies in the food industry. The company is currently undergoing strategic updating in all its production departments under the supervision of its new president and CEO, Gregg Weber. As part of this project, the GL640 advance will play a major role in supporting Color Craft’s mission to increase its capacity, speed and quality to better meet the evolving needs of its customer base.

“My position at Color Craft is focused on several critical areas, with number one being getting our capacity up. We have a strong, loyal customer base that loves what we do, but they want more from us,” said Weber. “The biggest things the GL640 advance is going to give us are the capacity and the makeready speed that we desperately need. Over the years, our customers have reduced their run sizes and increased their SKUs and product lines, so we need the ability to accomplish makereadies and press changeovers more quickly to support those smaller run sizes.”

Color Craft has three older Komori presses purchased in the 1990s that Weber says “are amazing” and still get the job done, but they are five generations behind in terms of development. With the advanced automation, intuitive technology and a maximum printing speed of 16,500 sheets per hour that the GL640 advance delivers, the company anticipates a 60% to 70% reduction in setup time, 60% to 70% reduction in materials and the ability to triple its production speed. Additionally, given the larger sheet size of the press and acceptance of difficult stocks, the company is also looking forward to having the capability to offer a larger variety of packaging projects to its customers.

“I've seen this press in action and I know it’s going to be a huge leap forward for us from a capacity and quality perspective, which puts us in a position to better service our customers from a speed-to-market and a cost perspective,” said Weber. “I'm extremely comfortable with the decision we made to buy this press.”

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