(Rolling Meadows, IL October 27, 2003) The Pollard Group, Tacoma, WA, has installed two new Komori presses; a four color Lithrone 40 and a six color Lithrone 28 perfector with inline coater. The Pollard Group has been active in the Tacoma, WA market since 1946 when Bryce and Lorraine Pollard founded the “South Tacoma Star”, a small merchant newspaper. Steady growth saw the company evolve into Star Printing, a commercial printing plant, and wiith sales in excess of $1 million, into what is now known as The Pollard Group. The company’s steady growth saw their equipment needs grow as well, shifting from small duplicator equipment to fully automated, full size sheetfed presses. A full service shop, The Pollard Group offers a fully digital electronic pre-press department, and provides services from design through fulfillment to their customers. The Pollard Group’s focus on quality and customer satisfaction, led them to their new Komori presses, a fully automated four color Lithrone 40 with chamber coater and a fully automated six color Lithrone 28 perfector press, also equipped with a coater. “Komori has been very supportive of our goals and offers us the technology needed for us to grow our business to new levels,” said Pollard Group President, Rob Pollard. Both new Komori presses use Komori’s PDC-S, scanning spectrodensitometer, that scans the sheet and sends the information to the press console, where corrections are made to any ink key that is out of specification. This provides an even finer control of ink keys and an additional level of additional level of control for quality assurance and closed loop press control for density and spectral evaluation. The automation on the press has had a positive impact on the entire workflow at The Pollard Group. Plant Controller Cheri Fjermedal says, “We have had to recalculate all our spoilage and makeready stock since we are now using a fraction of the stock previously required.”