SANTA CLARA, Calif. — When Exact Image Printing made the transition, in 1995, from quick copy printing to small-format sheetfed production, the company's technology may have changed but not its core philosophy.

"Customers want their materials printed quickly and inexpensively without sacrificing quality," said Charles Yum, president of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm. "We use only state-of-the-art equipment to deliver fast, high-quality prints. That's why we have achieved over 90 percent in customer satisfaction and retention."

Now Exact Image is bringing faster delivery and exceptional quality to four-page products with a Mitsubishi Diamond 1000LS.

"The press is very productive," Yum said of the six-color Diamond 1000LS with coater. "It runs fast, and the print quality is great. It is the perfect answer to short-run, quick-turnaround work."

Exact Image has served customers in Silicon Valley since 1990, first as a quick printer and later as a short-run job shop. Today, the eight-employee operation focuses on trade printing.

"We have built our business by forming alliances with brokers and other area printers," Yum said. "Printing is all we do. We do not get involved in bindery work."

Choosing to partner "with the most dependable names in the industry" also has contributed to Exact Image's success. The company tends to stick with suppliers it values. Up until it installed the Mitsubishi press, Exact Image had operated three five-color, 20-inch presses, all without coaters, from the same manufacturer.

"We replaced the three existing presses with the Diamond 1000LS because the half-size press format is the one we want to grow with," Yum said. "We can really compete well in this market."

Yum thoroughly researched competing printing technologies before settling on the Diamond 1000LS. Dependability helped seal the acquisition.

"I gathered a lot of information from many different sources," he explained. "Some good perspective came from printers I know in South Korea. They told me Mitsubishi presses are built like tanks. You can make the analogy with automobiles. You can either spend a lot more for the car and the maintenance or choose a different model and spend less on both. I decided that Mitsubishi was the best choice."

Yum said he eventually would like to see more Mitsubishi presses running side by side on the pressroom floor.

"That is how I want to build the business for the future," he said. "Everybody has been happy with the quality. We are producing more jobs. I have fewer headaches."