Clays announce £5million investment in digital print solutions
Date Added: Wed 14 September 2011
Two major investments announced today take Clays, the book division of St Ives Group, to the forefront of digital print solutions for the publishing industry.
Clays installed its monochrome digital book line in its Suffolk factory in January 2010. This month, the line has been upgraded with the Kodak Prosper 1000 replacing the VL 6000 as the print engine. The Kodak Stream Technology, integrated with the Sigma binding line, provides Clays with the quality, speed and flexibility needed to give customers cost-effective, short-run print solutions on a wide range of book formats.
In tandem with the existing Print-on-Demand (POD) facilities already in place (comprising inline single-copy production based on multiple digimaster platforms from Kodak), Clays can provide customers with solutions for the production of one book up to 1000, with the finished books identical in quality and appearance to those produced conventionally. The print solutions are supported by bespoke IT systems designed to provide automated workflows for single copy or short-run production and fulfilment – an end-to-end service for publishers. The production workflows are facilitated through the Kodak Prinergy system, also recently installed at Clays to enable seamless integration between digital and conventional production.
The next investment, also announced today, will take digital book production to a new level in terms of quality, speed and commensurate reductions in waste. Clays investments to date in digital print have been designed to provide solutions for the short-run market. Now, in an industry first, Clays will install a high-speed integrated bookline for significantly longer print runs. The line has been developed in a unique partnership between Clays and Timsons to provide a purpose-built solution designed from the ground up for monochrome book production. The line is supported by Muller Martini, also a long-standing partner for Clays, who will supply an inline binding solution for perfect bound paperbacks or lined bookblocks.
“Our new capabilities will provide our clients with numerous benefits” said Kate McFarlan, Managing Director at Clays. “Digital print is a low-waste manufacturing solution for physical books that is cost-efficient; books can be sold then printed, rather than printed then sold. Our approach to investment at Clays has always been to provide solutions for the publishing industry, and we are confident that our new digital investments do exactly that.”
Patrick Martell, CEO at St Ives Group added, “We are committed to servicing the publishing industry and we are working continuously to provide the best technology and services to our customers. This significant investment at Clays shows our ongoing support for the industry and our commitment to the printed book.”
An investment of £6 million was made last year to build a distribution and logistics plant next to the factory. The combination of extensive conventional and digital production, an integrated distribution and logistics facility and pre and post production services enables Clays to provide a unique service to publishers whilst reducing the cost and time of fulfillment.
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