Lotsa Printing is celebrating 20th anniversary by achieving the highest ever ISO compliance score in the ANZ region for its Port Douglas offset operation. Speaking with Australian Printer, Peter Martin, owner of Lotsa Printing, which has operations in Cairns, Port Douglas, Tablelands and Townsville, says getting the colour certification is the best thing he has done in the last five years.

(l-r) Peter and Bev Martin with David Crowther

Martin says, “Because we are remote it cost $20,000 to get the colour certification, but we made that back in the first six to eight months. “It has made a huge difference from prepress, to CTP, to on-press, we are getting the colours right every time.” He says the investment to get ISO certification has led to increased efficiency and productivity for the print company. Martin says, “We have saved on inks, and reprints. In fact we don’t do reprints anymore because there are no mistakes with the colours. “The certification process has also trained our staff, who don’t need to wait for the manager to come down and check the colours, which leads to increased productivity.” The company, which has recently hired another staff member to cope with the extra work has a team of 35, operates with a Fuji Xerox iGen, Ryobi 925UV five colour printer, HP L26500 latex and a HP FB500 flatbed printer. David Crowther, from Colour Graphic Services, who implemented the Mellow Colour certification in September 2014, and conducted the stringent audit last month, says: “It is an astonishing achievement – 95 per cent ISO overall compliance score for Lotsa Port Douglas, with 100 per cent for print quality; and 83 per cent for the Cairns operation. “We congratulate Peter Martin and his team for achieving remarkable progress in offset at Port Douglas and an extremely good effort for the first audit at Cairns, which is all-digital.” Crowther says because the Cairns operation is all-digital, mostly HP wide format signage and proofing to match the Port Douglas site 65 kilometres away; it is certified ISO 12647-8, the standard for Validation Print for all-digital workflows. “This was the first such audit for this category of Mellow Colour ISO 12647 Proficient Printers. Port Douglas, being mainly offset with a Ryobi 925UV is certified ISO 12647-2, which is offset lithographic processes,” he says. “No one has achieved an ISO audit score of 95 per cent in Australia or New Zealand before.”

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