Ego’s director, Ashley Tomlin, told ProPrint the company would take delivery of the new press in mid-February 2011.
The SM 102 will take over most of the company’s general commercial work, which is currently being produced on a six-colour Speedmaster CD 102 with double coater. Tomlin said this press would take on packaging work.
“Our main focus is packaging. This will give us 50% more capacity on our packaging press,” he said.
Tomlin added that the new SM 102 would replace a “half-sized” Manroland machine on the Mount Waverley shopfloor.
Tomlin said Ego had been looking to boost its equipment base “to increase our capacity and drive new business opportunities”.
The company had originally considered purchasing another CD 102, but changed its mind after undertaking a company-wide audit to determine its “true cost to print”.
“We bought this press new three years ago and have been extremely pleased with its performance so we were happy to go down that path again. But after analysing our production data it became obvious that a perfector press was the best choice in terms of broadening our offer and meeting our growth potential,” Tomlin said.
“Once we had decided that a perfector was the right press for us, we did look at other presses on the market to gauge what was out there. But at the end of the day we wanted to stay with Heidelberg because we’ve had such a positive experience with the company in terms of equipment performance and also service and support.”
Lindsay Barnes, general manager of product management at Heidelberg Australia/New Zealand, described the machine as the “highest spec’d” Speedmaster to be commissioned in the ANZ region.
The machine includes a Combistar Pro System, which comes with applications such as the ability to record all alcohol usage over the life of press.
“Being able to access this kind of information enables Ego to demonstrate to its customers a low or zero alcohol usage, which is a great selling tool in the current green climate,” said Barnes.
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