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Print expansion takes off
International airlines are demanding customers
As a specialist component printer, Kingsway Print identified a niche market for rapid turnaround of high-quality print on complex profiles. Today, the company's customer base is drawn from most industry sectors, including aircraft seating manufacture for some of the largest international airlines.
Demands of this industry are great. Print must be high quality and durable enough to withstand constant use by thousands of airline passengers. Turnaround times are short. An entire ‘ship set' may contain up to thirty component variations, each printed in quantities ranging from one to thirty, and must be printed and freight-packed within four hours.
One indicator of the company's success is that this small, family-owned pad printing business has grown entirely by recommendation. Now, with three generations actively involved in the business, it seems the time has come to expand this niche market.
A company spokesperson said: "There is tremendous untapped potential out there. We feel it is important that manufacturers, screen printers and even other pad printers are made aware of the benefits we can bring to their businesses. The realisation that low-volume, high-quality component printing is economically viable will open up new possibilities."
Installing an in-house pad printing facility may seem a tempting option, but it's not unusual to see a virtually unused machine gathering dust in some quiet corner.
Kingsway warned: "What many companies don't take into account is the amount of time it takes to master this process. With over fifty years of combined experience, we're still learning. As part of our service, we supply used pad printing machinery and training to customers where there is no other option, but we still print their difficult jobs for them."
As part of their expansion process, Kingsway Print has moved to new premises, installed computerised film-generation facilities to speed pre-production, created a dedicated toolroom for producing holding fixtures and purchased additional print machinery to streamline production.
