Industrial Printing Co. installed refurbished Ryobi press from Cyber Australia

NSW-based trade printer Industrial Printing Co. (IPC) has installed a refurbished Ryobi 924 LED UV press, which it recently purchased from Cyber Australia.

A first-time customer of Cyber Australia, IPC business owner David Scott told Sprinter that he decided to purchase the press to boost the 55-year-old company’s play in the sheet-fed offset space.

“The printing industry has changed dramatically over the past few years. The need for manufacturing forms has decreased to the point where there may have been 30 forms printers before, but now, we are one of three remaining forms printers in Australia,” he said.

“The heart of our business had been manufacturing forms on roll-fed presses. A few years ago, we decided that we needed to diversify into other areas of printing, such as eyeleting and stringing, wide format signage and barcoding, in addition to developing our digital printing facilities and building further into our conventional sheet-fed products like magazines, presentation folders, flyers and letterheads.

“We looked at various new markets and technologies, including packaging and labels and using roll-fed and sheet-fed inkjet technologies. After many sales offerings and samplings, we came to the conclusion that it was more viable to strengthen our sheet-fed offset operations.

“But, we knew that if we were going to be able to compete in the printing industry, we would need to upgrade to more efficient equipment.”

Not long after, Scott came across the Ryobi printing press with LED UV curing at Cyber Australia’s stand at PacPrint 2017 in Melbourne.

The Ryobi 924 LED UV press is part of its 920 series of A1-size high-speed multi-colour offset machines.

The models all come with a larger maximum vertical paper size (increased from 625 to 640 mm) for greater flexibility. It also features a maximum printing speed of 16,200 sheets per hour, and includes enhancements such as varnish coating capability for added value and higher productivity.

Cyber Australia managing director Bernard Cheong said, “At that time, IPC visited the tradeshow in search of a new digital press. But when they walked past our booth, they got attracted to the Ryobi press with LED UV.

“They then sat in several of our live machine demos and were keen on the capabilities of the machine. From then, they started re-aligning their business towards the new Ryobi 920ST-4 with fully automatic plate changer and LED UV.”

Scott said the capabilities of the press excited him, and he could see its advantages.

“I had decided that it could be a big part of the way forward for our business and started investigating LED UV presses,” he said.

“We decided on a LED UV offset press as conventional offset presses have a minimum of 20 years’ life span, while digital presses usually max out at about five years.

“We also believed that there would only be a small learning curve to move towards LED UV curing ink. Digital inkjet presses are also not only more expensive to buy but also to run when considering the cost of consumables and power required.

“Also, the environment, temperature and humidity requirements for digital presses are much more stringent, as compared to LED UV offset presses. The Ryobi LED UV press ticked all the boxes of our requirements.”

And Scott said he picked a refurbished unit instead of a new one because of the price difference between them, but also because the refurbished Ryobi press had all of the latest automated technologies that the business required.

Scott also mentioned that the Cyber Australia team guided him in his decision making of choosing the best LED UV press, having gone through the needs of IPC.

“At first, we were thinking of a five-colour A2 (four-up) press with perfecting technology, but then, Bernard explained the benefits of having a four-colour A1 (eight-up) press instead for less money,” he said.

“It meant that perfecting work could be done just as efficiently by printing ‘work and turn’ and with UV curing; even short runs could be perfected immediately. In addition, the Ryobi A1 press was the only one that would fit in the space we had next to our existing press with coater.

“We have been operating the Ryobi 924 LED UV press for a few weeks now and have noticed that it draws less power than our other press with coater, as the LED UV (10amp) curing requires much less power than IR drying.”

The Ryobi press has also tripled IPC’s capacity, enabling the company to now work on expanding its finishing section to help cope with the increased printing capacity.

“We are doing short-runs more efficiently, in addition to doing longer runs as eight-ups instead of four-ups. Our operators are happy with their new press and it will play a big part in taking us forward into the future, and help us better in supplying the needs of those in the printing industry.

“The Cyber Australia team has done a great job in the installation and training process, especially John McCallum, who still provides his help via phone as necessary.”

Cheong added that the decision for IPC to purchase a refurbished unit instead of a new one is smart, given the current market conditions presented by COVID.

“It’s a great move on their part as they played on the side of caution by purchasing a refurbished press instead of a new one to reduce the financial burden on the business,” he said.

“During unpredictable times, it is always good to have the cash to weather the head wind. This has proven to be a wise decision for IPC as it will now emerge stronger when the effects of COVID fades away.”

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