Kennesaw, Ga. – Florida Trade Graphics (Pompano Beach, Fla.), a full-service offset and digital printer exclusively to the trade, recently installed a Linoprint C901+ digital printing system from Heidelberg. The new system replaces a digital production press from another manufacturer that had become “far too expensive to run,” according to company president Dennis McNaney. 

Florida Trade Graphics uses the new Linoprint machine for the short-run digital and variable data work that represents a growing share of the company’s overall business.  Since the new Linoprint C901+ was installed, Florida Trade’s productivity has more than doubled, with the added benefit of a lower cost of operation per unit, McNaney said.

McNaney attributes this achievement, in large part, to the function of Heidelberg’s Prinect Digital Print Manager (DPM), which enables prepress operators at the Prinect Cockpit (1) to choose flexibly between offset and digital production; and (2) ensure consistent, cross-platform color management for all jobs. Besides the Linoprint C901+, the longtime Heidelberg shop also relies on a 6-color, 40” Speedmaster CD 102 and a 4-color, 20” Speedmaster SM 52 offset press. “Having been a digital producer for five years already, we didn’t need to shift any offset volume to the Linoprint C901+,”  McNaney said.

Course Correction

With Digital Print Manager, feedback from the Linoprint C901+ is immediately available for job costing and evaluation. As a result, “Heidelberg’s Linoprint package has enabled us to regain the business we previously lost because we lacked the correct digital equipment pricing,” McNaney said. “Our printing trade partners now can resell our products and be competitive with other printers in the marketplace.” 

The Linoprint’s variable-print capability comes in handy for numbering, addressing, personalizing copy or photos, and other print-on-demand applications, all of which are managed, planned and produced via Prinect Digital Print Manager. “We do the Heinz variety here – everything from single sheets to coil-bound books,” McNaney said, in run lengths from 20-5,000 copies.

Thirty-year-old Florida Trade Graphics, Inc. also has on hand an extensive line of bindery equipment – including Stahl folders and POLAR cutters – to perform countless types of final finishing of materials printed on its various Heidelberg presses. The company serves a nationwide trade clientele.