Color Station 'Swop' on a Kodak NEXFINIT Digital Press Helps Canadian Printer Work Wonders

It’s not easy for a new piece of equipment to impress someone who has been working with printing machinery of all types since the mid-1980s. When veteran operator Mark Butler of Mitchell Press says that he, customers, and even the manufacturer have been “blown away” by the quality and performance of the company’s recently installed NEXFINITY Digital Press from Kodak, his reasons for bestowing that high praise are worth looking into.

Butler is digital division supervisor at Motcjell Press , a print-based marketing company that has been doing business in Burnaby, BC since 1928. In May 2021, Mitchell was among the first sites in North America to beta-test what Butler describes as one of NEXFINITY Press’s most value-adding features: its ability to move opaque white from the fifth to the second imaging station of the five-color, dry-toner EP sheetfed press
Odoo • A picture with a caption
 

Window of Possibilities

“As a business, we now have that window where customers can come to us, and we have a price structure where we can do it on the NEXFINITY Press, and it fiscally makes sense,” Butler says. It also enables the production of high-volume hybrid jobs such as a real estate catalog with interior pages printed by heatset web offset and covers printed variably on the NEXFINITY Press, in a total run of 150,000.

Continuously adapting to changing markets and acquiring the capabilities needed to serve them have brought Mitchell Press to within just a handful of years of celebrating its 100th anniversary – a milestone that few printing companies ever reach. Kodak has been a key contributor to the company’s technological progress and longevity.

“Working with Kodak has really helped,” Butler declares. “What’s great about them as a company is that they’re always bringing updates for the press, like moving white into the second unit. We’re finding them very progressive. They don’t stand still. They’re always trying new things. Their people are brilliant. They have fantastic people, and we have fantastic people here. And I think that’s why we succeed.”