That's certainly the case with Ireland's Walsh Colour Print, based in Castleisland, within striking distance of Ireland's most westerly point and 280 km from Ireland's capital, Dublin.
However, since Tony and Patricia Walsh established their trade printing business there in 1991, initially focusing on small batch multi-color stationery products such as business cards and letterheads, their ability to deliver premium print anywhere in Ireland, more often than not with next-day deadlines, has enabled them to become Ireland's leading offset printing house — with Komori presses at the hub of their business for the last 17 years.
Their premises now occupy over 100,000 square feet (9,290 square meters), 25,000 of this storing over 3,000 pallets of paper in readiness to satisfy the spectrum of orders received every day. A 15,000-square-foot (1,394-square-meter) annex warehouses thousands of books that Walsh prints for its fast-growing educational publishing arm, educate.ie.
At the start of 2016, Walsh's Komori firepower comprised two four-color Lithrone 26s, a 10-color Lithrone 28P perfector, an eight-color Lithrone 40P perfector, a five-color Lithrone 29 with coater, and a highly automated four-unit 16-page Komori System 38S web press.
But since Tony visited the Komori stand at drupa 2016, the lineup has changed dramatically!

Komori's drupa signaled changes

From left: Tony and Patricia Walsh, Owners, and Micheál Walsh, Production Manager

"I arrived at drupa to sign up for a five-color Lithrone G40 H-UV and coater. I left having ordered three new H-UV-equipped Lithrones — the five-color Lithrone G40 H-UV, the four-over-four eight-color Lithrone GX40RP H-UV reverse printing perfector that was on the Komori stand, and the newly launched five-color Lithrone G29 H-UV with coater," says Tony.
The Lithrone GX40RP is already in production, with the Lithrone G40 installed in November, and the Lithrone G29 to follow in early 2017. Explains Tony: "We operate to daily seven pm dispatch deadlines in order to deliver next day to anywhere in Ireland."

Turnaround time is fundamental

"To say that turnaround time at Walsh is of the essence is something of an understatement — it's fundamental, which is why the H-UV curing system will be so beneficial for us. It's well established, well proven and brings with it several additional benefits, especially the flexibility to cure the ink instantly on all substrates and the ability to produce, with in-line coating, a gloss that is not too far away from a laminated finish. Everyone at Walsh will welcome the elimination of spray powder around the factory, and our customers will be impressed with the improved look and feel of the finished jobs. The green characteristics of H-UV are important to us too — including no ozone, clean air and lower power consumption."
"What Komori showed us at drupa, though, was much more than the green side of H-UV. There were the fully automated systems — ink key settings, register and plate changeover — that on the Lithrone GX40RP, for example, are simultaneous and reduce job-to-job downtime to two minutes. The quality control systems are equally important for us, especially as we print for the trade. And the KHS-AI Advanced Interface will cut our waste down to around 50 or fewer sheets per job — when it used to be in the hundreds. As trade printers, we accept whatever run lengths are specified and we always have to price very competitively. We'll be passing jobs requiring as few as 250 sheets to the eight-unit RP — possibly even lower run lengths to the new Lithrone G40 or Lithrone G29 — with the knowledge that whichever machine we use, every job will return a margin to us."
With the efficiencies of its System 38S 16-page web, Walsh calculates a breakeven between this and the sheetfed machines of around 3,000 sheets. The company currently outputs the equivalent of 800,000 sheets a day. "With the new machines, we can step this up to one million a day," says Tony.

educate.ie — a publishing success story

There's a €50 million market for educational books in Ireland. Seven years ago, having recognized weaknesses in the supply chain — in particular, what Tony and Patricia identified as detrimentally and unnecessarily high pricing — they created educate.ie, a totally new publishing division. This now turns over €5 million, enjoying year-on-year growth and developing new products continually. Much of the educational work is currently printed and folded in-line on the Komori System 38S web press.
Explains Patricia: "We're giving teachers the interesting, well-designed books they need to help them meet the challenges they face in today's classrooms. Our aim is to produce books that capture students' attention through the quality of their content, expression and design. What's more, we are dedicated to producing books at prices that parents can afford."
"Our role is to create books that provide a platform for classroom interaction. They're commissioned and written by highly experienced educators to match continually developing primary and post-primary curricula."
"Through educate.ie, we're playing our part in keeping educational bookshops alive, and now there's reason and potential for us to expand our products further. Also, with our three new Lithrones, we can now develop and print affordably priced books even for niche markets," says Patricia.