The six-color Komori Lithrone press helps meet growing customer demand while improving operating efficiencies

Rolling Meadows, IL - Komori America Corporation, a premier manufacturer of printing presses, today announced that family-owned Printed Specialties, located just outside Atlanta in Carrollton, GA, has recently installed a 40-inch, six-color Komori Lithrone press (LS640) to expand its packaging and folding carton printing capabilities. The LS640 is equipped with an Air Motion UV curing system to better fulfill the demands of the company’s clients in the hardware/software, floral and personal care products industries. Running at actual speeds of 16,000 sheets per hour, the LS640 replaces two earlier Komori models, reducing the press footprint on the shop floor as well as energy consumption at this ISO-certified facility. 

Other key features of the press include fully automated makeready and plate changing to support Printed Specialty’s operating efficiencies and profitability while producing a high volume of relatively short-run, versioned packaging products. The company reports it has significantly reduced its turnaround times and  can now do reticulating coatings, reactive varnishes, fan paper coatings and other exotic coatings it couldn’t do on a conventional press.

“We produce very high quality software packages that involve smaller runs, in one case as many as 50 different boxes customized for different regions. So the run volumes appear large, but they’re really not, and the Komori press supports those changes very well,” said Greg Smith, president of Printed Specialties. “The automation inherent in the press, particularly the plate-changing features, works very well for us. The press is running 16,000 sheets an hour right now. Komori said it would, and it is. However, probably more important than time is the savings of paper. On the older presses, it could take 500, 700, 800 sheets to pull up color, to maintain color. This press responds very quickly to changes. So when we ask it to put a little more magenta on, it only takes 15 to 20 sheets to see the change.”

Printed Specialties, founded in 1911 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, established itself in Carrollton in 1985 to serve then-customer Columbia Recording Co. As technology and markets have changed over the years, Printed Specialties’ focus also shifted to primarily packaging, and particularly to UV printing in order to produce the eye-catching specialty graphics required by today’s consumer products manufacturers. The company purchased its first Komori press, a 28-inch, six-color model, in 1990, and later installed a 40-inch, five-color Lithrone press.

“We are pleased that as Printed Specialties has seen dramatic shifts in market demands, we’ve been able to assist the company in keeping pace with its customers, especially in supporting the need to print high quality specialty UV work,” said Jacki Hudmon, senior vice-president of sales and marketing of Komori America. “Printed Specialties has been a Komori customer for more than 20 years, and we look forward to advancing into the future with them.”