The Brisbane printer has already pulled apart and cleaned one of its single-colour Heidelberg GTO 52 presses. The machine has been operational since Tuesday 1 February and is said to be “running the best it ever has”.
ABC expects its Stahl TD78 folder and Polar Mohr ED115 guillotine to be up and running by the middle to end of next week.
The printer also runs a fleet of Komori presses. Following the floods, Yoshiharu Komori, the president of the Japanese printing press manufacturer, wanted to help and flew a factory-trained engineer across from Japan to assess the four- and six-colour machines free of charge.
In a letter to Komori customers, he wrote: “We do hope the situation will recover rapidly and together with Komori and everyone’s efforts, business and life would come back to a condition as normal as possible very soon.”
ABC Printing director Alan Atterton said: “The generosity of Komori as well as Ferrostaal, which helped organise the engineer from Japan as well as send a mechanic, has been overwhelming and we cannot really put a value on it. We now know for sure that Komoris and filthy floodwater combined are a not a recipe for healthy machines.”
ABC printing has been operating its pre-press department and administration, sales, production and estimating departments out of Milton offices, but not its printing operations.
Brisbane’s print community has come to the company’s aid. Both Platypus Graphics and Panther Print have allowed ABC to print on their premises.
ABC Printing is currently operating at around 60% capacity and expects to increase this to almost 70% by the end of next week.
The company’s insurance claim is still being assessed, but ABC’s directors are hopeful that they will have an answer in the next 10 days.
“We are currently looking for new premises and should have a location selected in the next five or six days,” said Atterton.
“While there are still many more challenges ahead for us the dark and gloomy period is now behind us and we are re-building to become a force again in the Brisbane print scene.”
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