Built for Speed

Equipment and heroes

To deliver on these and similar needs, TLF Graphics draws on a rich mix of digital and conventional printing technology. The fleet includes flatbed inkjet printers, electrophotographic label printers, five screen-print presses, six flexographic presses, computer controlled cutting tables, and most recently, a Durst Tau 330 LFS, an inkjet label press with an integrated laser cutter. An additional 32 pieces of finishing equipment round out the equipment mix.

“Labels are an important part of our business and digital technology lets us work much faster and more efficiently than we could with flexo alone,” says McJury. “We are built for speed and we have heroes inside our company that make things happen and deliver for our customers.”

Many small jobs

All this work amounts to approximately $21 million in revenue split evenly between direct sales and distribution. And when you peel back the layers you find nearly 33,000 transactions a year with an average order size of less than $800, which is a big reason why digital printing technology has become a mainstay of the 35-year-old company.

“We use each machine for what it does well,’ says McJury. “We work based on ‘customer-need-by’ dates and run jobs on whichever press has the availability. For labels, that could be a flexo press, a toner-based digital machine, or the Tau 330.”

The flexo presses remain the workhorses for long run jobs, and are still used for jobs with few or no plate changes. Yet as customers increasingly seek shorter runs, look to minimize inventory levels, have multiple SKUs, and expect very short turnaround times McJury says digital presses, especially the Tau 330, have transformed the nature of his business. Many digital presses can do high quality work, he notes, but because they lack speed compared to flexo presses, they are often limited to shorter runs, perhaps up to about 5,000 feet. He has found their speed and throughput fills certain needs, but his customer mix requires more flexibility.