June 27, 2007 -- CARSON, Calif. -- Sumi Printing & Binding, Inc., a 21-year-old firm that provides a full range of printing, packaging and binding services, is driving new business development with a highly automated Mitsubishi Diamond 3000S with inline aqueous coater. Before installing the six-color, 40-inch press, Sumi Printing relied on a six-color straight press and a four-color perfector in the half-size format for its sheetfed projects.
"Clients that in the past would not have given us large-format work because we weren't cost-competitive with printers that operate 40-inch presses are now giving us business," said Roland Sumi, CEO. "The Mitsubishi press is also attracting new clients that we otherwise would not have gotten."
Established in 1986, Sumi Printing offers a mix of traditional offset printing and cutting-edge digital printing and web communications. It combines lithography, custom binding,  custom binders and tabs, kitting and fulfillment with online ordering and document creation and hybrid litho/digital production.
Sumi Printing evolved from a home garage-based business into a one-stop graphic communications provider. Sumi Printing began as a binding equipment and supply company. It branched out into offset printing in 1988 and added digital printing to its menu of services 11 years later.
Since 1999, Sumi has expanded rapidly into on-demand and variable information printing in color and black and white. The company currently has two Xerox DocuColor iGen3 digital production presses with inline punching, perfing, stitching and trimming.
A 30,000-square-foot facility staffed by 52 employees serves as Sumi Printing's headquarters. With annual sales in 2006 of $6 million, the company is experiencing consistent revenue growth of 25 percent.
Its extensive in-house binding services include saddle stitching, perfect binding, Wire-O, coil, comb and velo binding. The printer manufactures custom leather, cloth, litho and vinyl binders. Expert assembly of text pages, tabs and covers into finished binders is a Sumi Printing specialty. The company also provides foil stamping, embossing, silk screening, diecutting and 3-D products for executive-level presentations.
The Diamond 3000S features Mitsubishi's ColorLink CIP3/4 server and an X-Rite closed-loop ink-control system. These features keep waste down and enable faster makereadies for more profitable runs.
The press is engineered for both conventional and waterless offset printing, enabling Sumi Printing to produce a very fine dot and an overall high-quality printed piece. To complement these different printing methods, Sumi employs FM screening. The press maintains color much more consistently throughout the course of a run.
"We are printing a lot of real estate books, magazines, booklets, catalogs and folders on the Mitsubishi press," Sumi said. "It offered the best value compared to other press builders' equipment. If we keep growing at our present rate, I think we might be adding another press a year from now."