Book production specialist Sagim has increased its orders by 20 percent and stretched profit margins on short runs, following its investment in the KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press. The KODAK PROSPER Press has enabled the company to be more competitive and meet increasingly shorter turnaround times.

Sagim was the first print house in Europe to invest in a PROSPER 1000 Press. Its customer base comprises small, medium and large French publishing houses, such asGrasset, Odile Jacob, Presses Universitaires de France, Flammarion and Gallimard.

A well-considered investment

Christian Devambez and Guillaume de Courcy purchased Sagim in April 2009. Their aim was to invest in new technologies and offer a highly competitive package for short and medium runs.

“The choice was to reinvest in offset or switch to digital, and we opted for the latter,” says de Courcy, Managing Director.

Sagim investigated the different technologies available — from xerography or inkjet-based to sheet or web-fed — before deciding on the KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press. “We were won over by the press’ speed, quality and production capacity,” continues de Courcy.

The KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press features KODAK Stream Inkjet Technology. The system delivers a printing speed of 200 mpm on a 62.23 cm print width, enabling publications in formats up to 15.2 cm x 22.9 cm (6" x9") to be printed 4-up. The KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press has a duty cycle of 90 million A4 pages a month, for individual print runs of up to 4,000 copies.

Sagim also invested in a HUNKELER In-Line Finishing System and a KODAK PRINERGY Workflow System. The latter can use the same files to supply the KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press and the KODAK LOTEM 800 Platesetter, which is used to produce the offset plates for the company’s two VARIQUIK Presses.

Short learning curve

Once the KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press was installed, it didn’t take long for Sagim’s operators to get up to speed. “We trained all operators in two months, thanks to excellent support from Kodak’s technical staff,” adds de Courcy. “All our operators currently working on the PROSPER Press are former offset hands, and they found it very easy to adapt to digital.”

Digital quality wins over customers

More than a year on, de Courcy believes the company made the right investment decision. “We’re completely satisfied with the KODAK PROSPER Press, in terms of both productivity and print quality. We’re achieving outstanding quality with halftone and screened illustrations in particular. Reproduction quality for illustrations has surpassed our expectations — to the extent that some customers are asking for digital, even for the long print runs that are more cost effective with offset,” said de Courcy.

The perfect system for an evolving market

The KODAK PROSPER 1000 Press put Sagim on a firm footing. “We’re very competitive, whether a customer wants 500 or 4,000 copies,” said de Courcy. “The print market has changed. Nowadays, publishers prefer to order a shorter run to begin with, then order a reprint according to demand. Also, lead times have been cut significantly — we’re often given only a week to produce an initial print run, and just a few days for a reprint. None of this is a problem with the KODAK PROSPER Press. It has opened many doors for us — in fact, we’ve increased orders by 20 percent.”

Impressed by the impact of the KODAK Solutions, Sagim is considering purchasing a KODAK NEXPRESS Digital Production Color Press for book cover printing.

Kodak is a global advisor and provider of integrated services to help companies transform and optimize their businesses. Through a network of service professionals in more than 120 countries, Kodak provides technical, professional, consulting and managed services to enable customers to focus on growing their businesses, maximizing productivity, and more effectively managing risks. All KODAK Products and Software are backed by KODAK Service and Support. To learn more, please visit www.graphics.kodak.com.