XPress Printing Expands Digital Capabilities with Two Versafires from Heidelberg

Needing to keep up with the company’s exponential growth over the past eight years, XPress Printing & Design, a family-owned commercial printer in Columbus, GA, recently installed a Versafire EP and Versafire EV from HEIDELBERG. The two digital presses, thanks to their speed and accuracy, are producing high-quality, reliable long run and niche five color jobs for XPress Printing’s customers.

“Night and Day”

After years of sustained growth, XPress Printing “still provides small shop service,” said Josh Rovig, Director of Sales & Production, XPress Printing, “but also has the capacity to produce ‘big time’ projects for clients.” No longer a “mom and pop shop,” XPress Printing needed more reliable digital solutions that would help drive growth. The company, prior to the Fall 2022 installation of the Versafire EP and EV, was equipped with two digital presses of competitive technology and struggled with registration and color consistency. “Each job would require extensive sheet-to-sheet alignment corrections, which made it difficult for our finishing department to cut and fold accurately,” said Rovig. With the Versafire’s automatic inline camera technology, the front-to-back and sheet-to-sheet registration for the variety of stocks XPress Printing uses every day stays consistent – even on long runs. “The quality of the Versafires compared to our previous machines is night and day,” said Rovig.

Thanks to the improved alignment and excellent print quality, the company now has the confidence to keep some digital jobs in house that it previously would have outsourced. “The accuracy of printing duplexed oversized sheets has been extremely helpful,” said Rovig. “Now we own the timeline and can turn over projects quickly to meet our customers’ deadlines.” Additionally, with the reliability of the Versafire’s high-capacity stacker, the company can let long jobs run with less operator interference and has moved several of its offset jobs onto the Versafire EP. XPress Printing also uses the machine to run a variety of different stock types – from 18 pt. cardstock for die cut boxes to laminated stocks for runner bibs and synthetic paper for reusable menus – without experiencing any jams. “The Versafire’s efficiency allows us, as owners, the time to pursue new customers and provide a better experience for our current customers,” said Rovig.

Competitive Advantage

The opportunity for continued growth is why XPress Printing also purchased the Versafire EV, which prints with a fifth color toner – either white or clear (gold, silver, neon pink, neon yellow, and invisible red are also available). “With the EV, we can provide unique and creative projects for our customers,” said Rovig, “which gives us a competitive advantage by offering something our competitors don’t.” Since installation, the company has used its extended digital gamut to produce name badges for a designer event, book covers, personalized invitations on colored stocks, as well as watermarks for security on gift vouchers.

With a history of purchasing offset presses from HEIDELBERG, XPress Printing had an expectation for the quality the Versafires would produce. According to Rovig, “I knew that as a company, we could not afford to be wrong with these investments. We were eyeing other machines, but we knew HEIDELBERG’s proven platform equipped with the newest technology was the right choice.” XPress Printing ultimately made the decision to purchase both the EV and EP after seeing a demonstration at HEIDELBERG’s Print Media Training & Performance Center in Kennesaw. “We were able to view and bring sample print files to see the machines in action,” said Rovig. Additionally, when a customer ordered a new job mere days before the EV was installed, the team in Kennesaw hosted the company’s digital operator and showed him how to run the machine with a live job. “This type of effort really reassured us that we made the best decision,” said Rovig. “HEIDELBERG has really helped put our company in a position to grow and adapt as the industry changes.”

Source: Heidelberg

The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with Packaging Impressions. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Packaging Impressions.