Inland Press, located in Detroit’s historic Corktown neighborhood, has made a multi-million-dollar investment in increasing productivity and reducing its environmental and carbon footprint. Proud to be Michigan’s largest unionized commercial print shop, Inland Press serves the health care, automotive, non-profit, and general commercial markets and is one of the nation’s most progressive campaign/election printers.
“As our clients continually look to improve their sustainability efforts, Inland Press wants to be an exceptional partner and to set the standard,” says CEO Brad Thompson.
Inland’s strategic plan includes updates across all departments with LED lighting installed throughout the facility and prepress moving to chemistry free printing plates. The RMGT 970 8 color UV-LED perfector is the flagship of this effort in the pressroom. The RMGT 970 will eliminate virtually all VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and spray powder, while vastly reducing make ready waste and energy usage. This investment allows Inland Press to produce the highest quality products for its clients while significantly improving productivity, sustainability, and ergonomics.
“Our clients have continued to show their support of us with increasing volumes of work,” says Thompson. “It became apparent to us that it couldn’t be business as usual. We needed to evaluate how not only produce considerably more work, but simultaneously increase sustainability while improving ergonomics and workplace safety for the employees. After our management’s analysis, it became clear that the RMGT 970 long perfector would be a game changer for all these goals.”
The new offset press is equipped with the full ASAP (Automatic SMART Assist Program) automation package including the state-of-the-art PQS-D-I-R inspection system. This system utilizes a CCD camera technology to inspect every sheet for quality while adjusting color and registration instantly. It tags any sheet in the press delivery that fails the quality inspection so it can be diverted out of the finishing process to provide zero-defect output.
“We decided on the RMGT press with LED curing and the new ASAP system after considering several other options including inkjet. After running the numbers, the sheer volume of zero-defect printing this machine will produce made the offset the obvious choice, so we moved ahead quickly.” states Thompson. “This first of its kind in the U.S. press is so high-tech they are debuting the machine at the Printing United show in Atlanta before delivery to us in October.”
In addition to the RMGT 970, Inland Press will install a Saber paper cutting system with full operator ergonomics and CIP3/4 connectivity with pre-press, so the cutter optimizes job set-up, and will also upgrade other offset and digital press equipment throughout their facility. Thompson continues, “We purchased our equipment from Graphco since they’ve been the leader in LED, and this type of pressroom automation, so we were very comfortable with their approach.” This investment follows the installation of a Muller Martini Primera stitcher-trimmer recently, so every aspect of print and finishing has been vastly improved.
“As we move toward 130 years in business Inland Press is poised to compete with any printer in the United States, but our main goal is to provide high-quality and highly sustainable print to our customers so they can succeed,” concludes Thompson. The company plans to hire additional staff to help with the increased production.
www.inlandpress.com