From left: Regional Sales Manager Cary Ross, SCREEN Americas; Vice President Nick DeBlasio, JD Graphic; President Ken Ingram, SCREEN Americas; Executive Officer Business Development and R&D Yoshinari Otani, SCREEN Graphic Solutions; High-Speed Inkjet Solutions Engineer Pete Georges, SCREEN Americas

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Illinois—SCREEN Americas announces the installation of the Truepress JET 520HD+ to JD Graphic of Elk Grove Village, Illinois. The installation is the second from the SCREEN Truepress JET 520HD Series and took place nearly two years after the Illinois-based printer worked closely with SCREEN’s high-speed digital inkjet team to onboard new applications and transition targeted work from offset to digital production. The partnership has allowed JD Graphic to tap into new markets, double its capacity on a reduced expenditure and provide new career opportunities for long-time press operators.

Founded in 1963, JD Graphic is a family-owned business spanning three generations. It relocated its operations from Chicago proper to Elk Grove Village in 1976. Up until three years ago the company operated mostly offset equipment and outsourced all of its direct mail production. Since the installation of the first Truepress JET 520HD+, the company now produces all of its direct mail jobs in-house. Approximately 110 million pieces were mailed in 2023 and 160 million are expected in 2024.

Direct mail is not the only market JD Graphic has tapped into thanks to SCREEN. The print provider has taken a deep dive into the publishing market producing 40,000 perfect-bound books per month. Forty authors have taken their business to JD Graphic with requests for printing 200- to 500-page novels in quantities of 1,000 per run. The company has also expanded into the golf industry, printing an estimated 100 million score cards per year.

Not afraid to assign any job to the SCREEN Truepress JET 520HD+, Vice President Nick DeBlasio of JD Graphic is confident in communicating the benefits of digital inkjet printing to even his most conservative customers. “The versatility of the HD is great,” said DeBlasio. “We’re getting to the point where we can throw just about anything on the press. My grandfather would be amazed at the changes we’ve made, but ever since we started using digital roll-fed inkjet, we have never looked back.”

The Truepress JET 520HD+ has definitely changed the game for JD Graphic. Jobs that once took seven days to complete are now finished in 24 hours. Additionally, smaller runs can now be printed spontaneously without having to factor in cost-prohibitive downtime due to makeready. These savings get passed on to JD Graphic’s customers.

The enthusiasm at JD Graphic is contagious. Press operators who once spent countless evenings cleaning ink from under their fingernails now go home reinvigorated from the new technology and having the capability to complete more work. Instead of changing messy blankets and inky plates, the operators simply change rolls of paper. The HD series has allowed JD Graphic to go from having three press operators assigned to one offset machine to one press operator attending both HD+ machines.

As JD Graphic continues on its upward trajectory of growth, its relationship with SCREEN remains paramount. “SCREEN has a creative mindset when it comes to helping me get to the next level in my business,” said DeBlasio. “And SCREEN is very easy to navigate. You don’t have to go through multiple layers to get to the right person.”

JD Graphic currently operates two facilities in Elk Grove Village and employs 60 individuals. Its customer retention rate is impressive; some relationships date back 35 years.