PRINTING United Exhibitor Spotlight: Q&A with Chris Manley, President of Graphco

1. What will be some of the highlights of your PRINTING United booth?

PRINTING United 2021 marks the worldwide debut of RMGT’s latest entry to the thriving 8-UP offset press segment, the all new 970 Series. This press changes the 8-UP landscape by growing the sheet size to the industry standard 25” X 38” format. Showcased will be the 970ST-5+CC five color with coater featuring LED curing, simultaneous plate changing and fully automated makeready technology.

Live presentations each hour will highlight this year’s theme;  RMGT Bridging the Gap, demonstrating how RMGT technology allows customers to Bridge the Gap as short run print jobs are shifting away from digital and back to LED cured offset print produced on highly automated RMGT 9 Series presses. The new 8-UP+ RMGT 970 joins nearly 100 very successful 9 Series presses running throughout North America, which makes RMGT the dominate player in this highly profitable market segment.

The new features being showcased include the following:

• Automated Smart Assist Printing (ASAP) – 4-minute makereadies will be enabled by automated and autonomous press operation with the push of a button.
• Single pressman operation – Over 80% of RMGT 9 Series presses running in North America are manned with a single pressman.
• New 8-UP+ sheet size of 25” x 38” – the latest RMGT 9 Series press to Bridge the Gap between half-size and 40” presses

Bridging the Gap doesn’t end with the shift from digital back to offset.   Nearly 40% of new RMGT 9 Series press installations have displaced two or more older presses (mostly other brands) so for many printers the 9 Series Bridges the Gap between high labor, maintenance, and waste costs and vastly increased profitability. Other Gaps being Bridged include a move from very high cost off-line print embellishments toward in-line special effects like chemical embossing, cold foil, and soft touch finishes produced at full press speeds. The 9 Series print platform is highly affordable, which leaves room in buyer budgets for in-line embellishments which again lead to higher margins and overall profitability.

2. What are you most looking forward to about attending one of the first printing/packaging industry events since the pandemic?

The opportunity to join our colleagues in the printing industry at a live industry event is very exciting.  The early results of the China Print show for RMGT were outstanding with numerous very significant press orders being booked, so we look forward to the North American Printing Industry also re-investing in high quality and highly profitable offset print. Let’s face it, in the 27 years since Indigo went public digital has only erased a very small fraction of the print produced by offset so the supposition that offset is deal is absurd. What’s dead is old iron with high labor, waste and maintenance costs and RMGT is the most compelling solution based on our high quality, high productivity and our extremely affordable acquisition and ongoing ownership costs.

3. What are some of your expectations for the packaging industry in the coming year?

Since you cover this segment I’m sure you’ve seen that many packaging producers have seen a corona-bump based on so many products that were once shipped in bulk to a retail distribution center now being sold one by one directly to consumers, along with many other factors. Where we see fertile ground is in the short and medium run segment since the RMGT 790 Packaging Edition press offers the speed to market and high print quality that packaging printers need at a much lower per piece cost than any digital device on the market.  We have a Wisconsin based customer who routinely produces 20-30 one-off packaging projects per day on his 790 PE so the technology is stable, available and affordable.

4. Is there anything else you would like to add?

We do recognize that for certain packaging applications, a 41” press that pumps out 40 point board 24 hours a day is the right fit and we also offer our RMGT 10 Series presses that meet or exceed the needs of practically any packaging printer at a cost, quality, and durability level that is very compelling.