In a massive 12 million euro (14 million U.S. dollar) investment, Norway's Ålgård Offset has doubled its factory space, adding a new 5,000-square-meter production extension into which it has installed its third Komori System 38S 16-page web offset press. Like the previous machines, the first of which was installed in 2003 and the second in 2009, the new four-color System 38S has a 625 mm cut-off, web width of 965 mm, and a double-chopper combination folder that delivers a multitude of different folded products. The new System 38S also has Komori's latest automated systems including Full-APC Automatic Plate Changer and the self-learning KHS-AI Advanced Interface for short makeready with its one-step register adjustment, color matching and folder adjustment.
Magazines make up almost 40 percent of Ålgård's work, with direct mail contributing a similar volume. Run lengths average around 50,000 but sometimes exceed a million, although these longer runs often involve regional copy changes.

Believing in print

Three years ago, with its two 16-page System 38S webs running constantly at full capacity, Ålgård needed to examine what the web market would have in store over the long term. Founder and CEO Tom Norland explains: "We run with the slogan 'Print isn't everything. It's the only thing!' From that, you can see that we truly believe in print! The Norwegian market is still big — even with a lot of production going outside the country. With the best equipment, high automation and additional capacity, and with web reels always available from our big paper store, we knew we could hold down our production costs and attract a substantial volume of that work back to Norway."
"We knew we needed to stay with the 16-page format. Naturally, we spoke to other web press manufacturers, but we've always been able to rely on our two 16-page Komori webs to deliver consistently high quality with fast changeovers and very little waste. Training and spare parts availability and our operators' knowledge made it a simple decision to continue with what we consider to be the best 16-page press on the market. With our new System 38S changing all eight plates within two minutes and delivering 60,000 16-page sections an hour, we now have the flexibility to turn around both long- and short-run work even faster than before."

Says Managing Director Paul Loyning: "The enormous reduction in Norway's quality print capacity over the last five years has contributed to the need for print buyers in our country to buy elsewhere. Fifteen years ago, there were over 10 heatset printers in the market here. Now we're alone in this country, but certainly not across Europe. Our rationale in investing in our new building and the new Komori was that the investment would ensure that we become competitive enough to reduce the import of print into Norway and also attract work from other Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Denmark."

"Three compatible System 38S webs that can be run in tandem undoubtedly give us more scope to adjust and adapt job scheduling, making us more competitive on magazine and catalog runs as low as 3,000. Plus, we have all the necessary production facilities in-house, such as UV curing, stitching and perfect binding, to complete production swiftly and efficiently. Even more so now, as we can print our own covers internally at the new Kando Print development, where we've recently installed the eight-color Komori Lithrone G40P perfector with the remarkable H-UV curing system. With this on-site facility working three shifts and able to feed our finishing department with instantly dry covers, we're tightening delivery times even further."

Established in 1980, the 25 million euro (29.5 million U.S. dollar) turnover company takes its name from the town in which it is located, close to the North Sea coastal city of Stavanger and 500 kilometers from Norway's capital Oslo.