Company expands sales of customized, short-run packaging—production costs sharply reduced 

MILWAUKEE—Graphic Edge Printing & Packaging owners Dale and Dawn Skinkis gently christened their new five-color, 6-up RYOBI MHI 755 XLD Packaging Edition press this summer with a special “celebration” magnum of Japanese gold-flecked sake.

But no glass was broken because there was business to get done.  Within moments, the 31-inch, fully automated RYOBI MHI press started printing for profit as more than 30 employees and guests watched one of the first live jobs roll off the press.

The new, fully featured, 16,000-sph press, capable of printing onion skin to 31-point board, is the first North American installation of the specially configured Packaging Edition press that’s winning placements at commercial and packaging printers worldwide.  The press will be discussed by RYOBI MHI and Graphic Systems North America executives at Graph Expo 2014, Booth 4404, Sept. 28-Oct. 1 at McCormick Place in Chicago.

The RYOBI MHI 755XLD is a smart fit for commercial printers who want to grow their package printing business.  The press accommodates a wide variety of substrates and provides all the fast-makeready features needed to meet the quick-turnaround and exacting quality demands of today’s print customers.

“We put all other Japanese and German offset press brands to a very rigorous test—both in the U.S. and in Japan.  The RYOBI MHI 755 beat them all, hands down,” said Dale Skinkis.  “Our press has taken Graphic Edge into important new markets. We can meet strict customer requirements at an impressively low cost of production.” 

Among the factors in the veteran printer’s decision to choose the RYOBI MHI press:  its attractive entry price, high level of automation, low total operating cost, along with its record of reliability, versatility and world-class print quality.

The RYOBI MHI Packaging Edition press features automatic deployment and retraction of transfer drums to accommodate stocks of all thicknesses, a special heavy-duty feeder as well as an air-guide system to float sheets through the press without marking.  Ryobi’s Smart Makeready and Insta.Color technology drive makereadies down to between six and eight minutes and keeps waste sheets to a minimum.

“This new press has really supercharged our productivity—and it keeps getting better every week,” Skinkis said.  “We can comfortably handle very short runs of 500 boxes all the way up to 600,000 or more.”

Graphco, Cleveland, Ohio, and its dealer-partner, Guaranteed Service & Supply (GSS), West Bend, WI, supplied the press.  Graphco is a founding partner of Graphic Systems North America (GSNA), the exclusive distributor of RYOBI MHI presses in the U.S. and Canada.

Attending the June inaugural ceremony of the press was RYOBI MHI senior sales executive for the Americas, Kozak Takata, along with Derek Gordon, Graphco’s Midwest Regional Manager, and Eric Hoffman from GSS.

The installation went quickly, said Skinkis, with the removal of the firm’s previous press, a Heidelberg SM-74, and the startup of the RYOBI MHI 755 press taking just one week. “We couldn’t have asked for an easier install and more professional technical support.”

“This press does the job that two presses used to do.”

In addition to Graphic Edge, Dale and Dawn Skinkis own four Digital Edge Copy and Print Centers in metro Milwaukee.  Combined, the five operations employ 31 people and generate more than $5.5 million in revenue. All serve Fortune 500 firms to small businesses with an intense emphasis on detail and fast turnaround.

Skinkis said the new press is driving fresh growth in customized package printing for Graphic Edge. The company’s niche is quick prototyping and printing of premium folding carton retail packaging, typically in runs from as little as 500 up to 20,000 units, in extremely quick turnarounds.

“This press does the job that two presses used to do for us,” Skinkis said.  “It can easily handle 30-point white board for folding boxes with absolutely no feeding or marking problems.  Then, when that’s done, we can turn right around and run 80-pound text (for product information inserts) on the same press without any cross-press issues like color matching.”

For many package printers, creating retail packaging from prototype to finished product can take four to six weeks or longer.  Graphic Edge can do the same job in as little as a week or less.  That kind of turnaround, with no sacrifice in innovation or quality, is very rare in package printing today.  Essentially, it’s premium package printing on demand.

In addition, said Skinkis, “we don’t have costly set-up charges like many of the big package printers do.  We have very fair and transparent per-piece pricing—and our customers really appreciate that.”