The Konica Minolta C6000 digital press, won in a competition run by paper supplier Antalis UK, was used to print leaflets and fliers in runs of up to 5,000 for cystic fibrosis charity fundraiser Joe Tonge, aged 19. Kestrel Printing, based in Southend-on-Sea, runs the new machine alongside a Konica Minolta C6500 for short-run business cards, leaflets and brochures. The 28-staff business also runs litho kit such as a five-colour Komori L28 and two Heidelberg GTOs and makes around £2m turnover. Director Keith Ross said: “The new machine, which we won on a draw after buying Antalis paper, has a list price of over £100,000 so it’s a great win and will double our digital capacity. More people want smaller quantities but quicker turnaround times so this kit is ideal.” The new machine runs at 34 SRA3 sheets a minute. Kestrel Printing went digital two years ago and intended to use its original Konica Minolta a couple of times a week. Demand soon saw it running up to 12 hours, five days a week. Digital “picked up a lot more than we anticipated”, said Ross. Co-director John Galley added: “This latest edition to our range of printing equipment will help us to boost our own business offering, especially with the onset of our new online ordering facility.” Tonge aims to be the first person with cystic fibrosis to reach the 19,341ft summit in Africa and is climbing on behalf of Southend’s Cystic Fibrosis Association. He visited Kestrel Printing recently with association colleague Chris Hyde and Emily Hewett who designed the...

According to a statement, Paperlinx and DHL have “identified a number of common strategic initiatives, capable of driving value for both organisations through close collaboration”. However, Paperlinx chief executive Andrew Price stressed that no final decisions had been made on what form the strategic partnership will take and added that at this stage it was focused on developing a five-year logistics business plan that will aim to reduce costs and, according to the company, “create a more flexible operational model”. “What we’re stating is our intention to work with DHL at a strategic level to identify ways to deliver our products, better, faster, cheaper to our customers,” said Price. “Right now, all we’re doing to is setting up the ground rules to enable both companies to work closely on what that solution will look like. We’re approaching this with a completely open mind.” Price said that Paperlinx had looked at a number of possible logistics partners and had identified DHL as having the right scale and synergies. It’s understood that the partnership will not be focussed purely on customer deliveries, and could extend to inbound deliveries to Paperlinx, possibly including deliveries from Asia. Other areas under the microscope will be stock strategy, network integration and procurement. At this stage the company is yet to reveal if the DHL deal, once it’s finalised will be in the UK only, across Europe or even Global. However, Price admitted that one outcome of the partnership could be DHL taking over customer deliveries. “That could be an outcome if it satisfies my criteria of being better, faster cheaper.” “But the only thing we’re sure of at this stage is that we don’t know what a paper merchant will look like in five years time. All we do know is that the most successful merchants won’t look like they do now,” he said. “We all have to change; we’ve got changing customer needs and a changing market.” While the final shape of the deal is still to be decided, Price said that while it was possible, it was unlikely that the DHL partnership would come to nothing as the two companies had already carried out some initial work that indicated there were areas they could “work together”. Price said he anticipated an outline of the partnership would be finalised by the end of this year, although he said any significant changes to its logistics would be rolled out in stages to ensure service continuity....

Speaking to analysts ahead of next month’s interim results announcement (on 5 December), Roberts said that “every part of the business has performed well and is improving” following last summer’s SCA deal, adding that central and eastern Europe and Italy had registered the strongest growth. Commenting on the firm’s acquisition strategy, Roberts said: “We continue to bed down the SCA acquisition, the cost synergies are all on track, and our customers are rewarding us: we’re not just [incurring] cost we’re seeing the revenues coming through as well now. “And our customers – putting it bluntly – are saying ‘we would like to see you in some other areas DS Smith; in Europe we would like to see you extending further [because] we like what we see’. They are certainly encouraging us to continue to grow and we’re out there looking.” However, Roberts warned that the company would not pay over the odds to achieve its goals. “At the end of the day we’ve got to make money for our shareholders and some people we’ve been talking to want some very high prices, which we’re not going to pay, but I think there are a number of opportunities there and we’ll come back in due course,” he said. Commenting on the group’s progress in the six months to 31 October 2013, Roberts said: “Our packaging business has continued to gain further market share and… Corrugated volume growth remains well in excess of our GDP+1% target.” Roberts said that DS Smith was seeing “continued gains from the larger [FMCG] players”, while its strategy to become the biggest recycled packaging company in Europe was “building resilience into the growth we’re seeing”. “The reason we target the FMCG market is because it’s resilient, so it doesn’t rise and fall with the same volatility as the industrial sector,” he said. “So we’re trying to build resilience into our growth and not just ride on the back of a sort of a housing upturn in the UK, which is nice while it lasts but it’s notoriously volatile.” He added that the larger FMCG businesses were growing “pretty much at the expense of some of the smaller players” and said that there was “more stability” in the market than in recent years, with “growth overall slightly positive”. “We have some really quite exciting prospects in central and eastern Europe and we really have seen that coming through not just in the last quarter but in the outlook [for] the coming 6-12 months,” he said....

The high-quality magazine printer signed a €3.7m order for a Rapida 106 10-colour perfector on KBA’s stand at Drupa last year, although it was revealed in December that the press install had been put back to 2013. However, in a volte-face the Cardiff-based printer has today announced that it has returned to incumbent sheetfed supplier Heidelberg for two XL 106 10-colours, its fourth and fifth XL B1 presses, after it “toyed with switching supplier”. Alan Padbury, managing director of Westdale Press, said: “The final decision came down to confidence in the machine and our ability to operate with Heidelberg technology. We know it and understand the press. “Moving to another manufacturer is a big step and without experience we wouldn’t get the most out of another press.” The first XL 106-10-P, which will be delivered in April 2014, will be a 15,000sph machine with Autoplate XL and Inpress Control. It will replace an older 12-colour Speedmaster, and will primarily handle shorter run work between 500 and 10,000 sheets. “We will certainly see a double-digit productivity improvement with the first new XL 106,” said Padbury. “We have had Inpress Control on one of our presses before and we know it is a powerful tool. Autoplate XL is a first but we see its potential.” Westdale Press also prints high-quality brochures and catalogues and picked up two quality Awards at the PrintWeek Awards earlier this month. The firm said that the majority of its work fits well on a 10-colour machine and that the volume of six-colour work was not enough to justify another 12-colour press. A second, 18,000sph Speedmaster XL 106-10-P with Inpress Control (but without Autoplate XL) will be installed 12 months later for longer run jobs and is expected to output around 70m impressions per year based on the current market. Westdale said it was phasing the investment to allow it to manage space and power and to review further the type of work it does. The company is currently reviewing its web-sheetfed balance to ensure it meets customer expectations for quality, response and cost. Deputy managing director Dean Pike will implement the bedding down of the new presses....

The high-quality magazine printer signed a €3.7m order for a Rapida 106 10-colour perfector on KBA’s stand at Drupa last year, although it was revealed in December that the press install had been put back to 2013. However, in a volte-face the Cardiff-based printer has today announced that it has returned to incumbent sheetfed supplier Heidelberg for two XL 106 10-colours, its fourth and fifth XL B1 presses, after it “toyed with switching supplier”. Alan Padbury, managing director of Westdale Press, said: “The final decision came down to confidence in the machine and our ability to operate with Heidelberg technology. We know it and understand the press. “Moving to another manufacturer is a big step and without experience we wouldn’t get the most out of another press.” The first XL 106-10-P, which will be delivered in April 2014, will be a 15,000sph machine with Autoplate XL and Inpress Control. It will replace an older 12-colour Speedmaster, and will primarily handle shorter run work between 500 and 10,000 sheets. “We will certainly see a double-digit productivity improvement with the first new XL 106,” said Padbury. “We have had Inpress Control on one of our presses before and we know it is a powerful tool. Autoplate XL is a first but we see its potential.” Westdale Press also prints high-quality brochures and catalogues and picked up two quality Awards at the PrintWeek Awards earlier this month. The firm said that the majority of its work fits well on a 10-colour machine and that the volume of six-colour work was not enough to justify another 12-colour press. A second, 18,000sph Speedmaster XL 106-10-P with Inpress Control (but without Autoplate XL) will be installed 12 months later for longer run jobs and is expected to output around 70m impressions per year based on the current market. Westdale said it was phasing the investment to allow it to manage space and power and to review further the type of work it does. The company is currently reviewing its web-sheetfed balance to ensure it meets customer expectations for quality, response and cost. Deputy managing director Dean Pike will implement the bedding down of the new presses....