Tassie outfit Print Domain expects to boost sales and profit from bigger jobs after its newspaper owner decided to outsource its production.
The small printer is owned by the publisher of the Circular Head Chronicle, which covers northwest Tasmania, and had been printing the weekly paper as well as commercial work.
Printing of the Chronicle will now be outsourced to Fairfax, freeing up more time for Print Domain to run profit-generating work and chase bigger jobs.
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General manager Michael Gates says the company can now focus on growing its commercial operation, as its improved flexibility will make it more attractive to potential clients.
“Printing the Chronicle ties up three or four hours on a Wednesday, plus finishing and booklets, which is a valuable day in our production schedule when we are printing bigger jobs,” he says.
“Big jobs ordered on a Tuesday usually could not be started until Thursday, and everyone wants their printing done quick these days.”
Gates says Print Domain will both be able to compete better for big jobs and produce small, on-demand work more reliably and flexibly.
The printer’s bottom line would of course also improve as the marginless newspaper work could be replaced with profit-making jobs.
Print Domain has a Shinohara 520 five-colour sheetfed press, which was used to print the Chronicle, two other monochrome Shinohara presses, and a range of finishing kit at its main Smithson facility, and a Konica Minolta bizhub 1070 Press at a smaller factory in Burnie.
Gates says the company produces books, flyers, brochures, cards of any kind, and other general commercial work. Book runs of less than 400 are printed on the digital machine.
It also has a wide format business printing mostly photo-quality posters and pull-up banners with an Epson 9900 wide format printer in Burnie and a Heidelberg flatbed in Smithson.
The newspaper assures its readers the cover price will not change with the printing arrangements and it can now be used to start bonfires, a popular recreation in the area, as it will no longer be printed on glossy paper.
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