Rotorua’s largest printing company, Dudfield Bryce stepped up the pace in its digital printing department with the installation of two Konica Minolta bizhub Pro machines
In April 2007, two Rotorua printing companies, Dudfield Print (established in 1993) and Bryce Printers (formerly Ian Bryce Ltd, established around the 1940s) amalgamated to form Dudfield Bryce Printers. Owned by the Beacon Publishing Group in Whakatane; it employs 12 full-time and three part-time staff members.Kevin Crowe, general manager of Dudfield Bryce, joined the company in June 2005. He’s seen its turnover more than double since then. He says, “Our client base is extremely diverse, taking in mainly a cross section of local businesses with a small amount of out of town clients from Whangarei to Dunedin.”
As turnover increased, Crowe and the staff at Dudfield Bryce realised the company needed to update its plant. Even with an impressive line up of technology, including a brand new Heidelberg Speedmaster offset press, a growing demand for digital printing motivated the company to look around. Crowe says, “We were looking at a colour production machine of around 50–70 pages per minute that could handle up to 300gsm stock and a black and white of around 100 pages per minute to replace our two existing machines that had served us well, but were getting past their used by date.
“We spent months evaluating all the machines currently on the market, and had several trips to Auckland for demonstrations of them. We were impressed by the Konica Minolta’s quality when we compared the same printed files with all the machines, along with its ability to print on almost any stock. Then finally Konica Minolta came up with a creative deal that just couldn’t be refused.
The solution in two machines
KONICA Minolta’s solution consisted of Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6500, for digital colour printing, and the Konica Minolta bizhub PRO 920 for black and white A4 printing. Installation, according to Crowe, went seamlessly. He says, “Installation was an absolute breeze, we were up and running in just a few hours.”
While any new piece of equipment arrives with training requirements, the staff members at Dudfield Bryce found little trouble in adapting to the newer technology, Crowe says, “The Creo rip on the Konica Minolta works in a similar way to the workflow software we use to make our CTP plates, so our staff found it really easy to pick up on, and were quite proficient with it in a short space of time.”
The staff at Dudfield Bryce finds that the machines offer consistent colour reproduction, fast turn around and the ability to print on almost any stock. Crowe continues, “Konica Minolta is extremely easy to deal with. The company has a large and helpful team. Our two machines are connected to what is known as Sentinel Services, which helps Konica Minolta to monitor the condition of our machines off site. Sometimes a technician will arrive to fix a problem that is happening that even we didn’t know about, which we find very pro-active.
“The Konica Minolta machines have been incorporated very smoothly into our operation. Sometimes we run jobs that have previously been run on our four-colour press or vice versa, and we find the results surprisingly close, at times we even struggle to tell them apart.”
Staff found the speed of the C6500 impressive. Crowe adds, “It’s awesome. In fact, we can’t find enough work for it. The amount of printing that would keep the old machine busy all day takes only an hour with the C6500.”
Future challenges
DESPITE its status as one of the region’s big print players, Dudfield Bryce faces a number of challenges, both local and global. Crowe explains, “Being in the Bay of Plenty, we don’t seem to suffer the peaks and troughs that the big town printers do, however Rotorua is a tourist town. So when there is a downturn in tourism, as there was with the bird flu epidemic, most of the town is affected in some way or other.
The global economic downturn makes the outlook for New Zealand printers a tough one. Crowe says that business conditions have tightened; run lengths have got shorter; more work is now being done electronically and emailed or placed on the internet; and there is more overseas competition, especially from Asia, for some of the larger work. Even so, he reckons the inevitability of increased automation and computerisation contributes a positive effect on Dudfield Bryce’s operation and business.
He says, “With the increase in technology that the Konica Minolta machines provide, we are now capable of producing a wider range of items, at more competitive prices, that previously we struggled to cope with. I don’t see Dudfield Bryce being any different to the majority of print shops in New Zealand. There is definitely a need to keep pace with new technology, those companies that have not kept pace will find it too hard to catch up once they have lagged behind.”
