August 13, 2003 -- The addition of new Heidelberg M-600 and V-30 web presses for Trend Offset Printing's headquarters will put the company in the unique position of running not only the greatest number of M-600 printing units in North America, but also the highest number of V-30 printing units worldwide. The new presses will bring the total to 40 printing units in five M-600 presses and 64 printing units in five V-30 presses. The California based company is showing that diversification, customer support and a focus on quality can keep business growing even in a tenuous economy. Aside from spanning the country geographically, with locations in Los Alamitos, CA, Carrollton, TX and Jacksonville, FL, Trend Offset offers an equally wide range of production capabilities. Each of the three US locations provide heatset and non-heatset printing for weekly, bi-weekly and monthly publications, as well as commercial products and directories. Trend also offers a full scope of prepress and postpress services. "By having similar, versatile press equipment at each of our locations, we have significantly increased our ability to adapt to what our customers need. The common platforms create a consistency in quality and efficiency that our customers can rely on," explains Bill Martin, Trend Offset's national vice president for manufacturing and procurement. The new V-30, due to ship in August 2003, is a 16-unit 10-web press that incorporates a JF-35 folder. The new M-600, an eight-unit, two-web press with a JF-255 folder, will follow in September. The M-600 will feature Heidelberg's Autoplate fully automatic plate changing system. Current Heidelberg presses at the Los Alamitos location include two eight-unit M-600s and two12-unit V-30s, delivered in January of 2000. The Carrollton, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida facilities each have one eight-unit M-600 and one 12-unit V-30. Trend Offset has purchased presses based on customer needs as well as on quality according to Martin. "The M-600 has been so reliable and maintained such high levels of productivity that it has been Trend's only choice for heatset printing," he explains. The V-30 presses handle non-heatset requirements and have been phasing out older equipment for the last five years. The M-600 is currently the best selling 16-page web press in the world. Heidelberg introduced the model in 1992 and has shipped well over 1,500 printing units worldwide. The V-30 is the latest generation of the Vanguard, the first-ever web offset newspaper press introduced in the 1950s.