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The Company.

Allison Printers can trace its origins back over a century, and throughout that time the area surrounding the company’s 2,000sq ft works in the village of Wollaston has been famous for shoe manufacturing. Although this traditional industry has declined in recent decades, several shoe plants remain for Allison to supply with quality print. The company has a wide customer base, drawn mainly from Northamptonshire but including London and beyond. It has 4 staff, all members of the Willmer family, who have been owners for 32 years.

Allison Printers is the first UK company to install a pre-owned Hans Gronhi press. The YK522 two-colour became available at just the right time, according to father-and-son management team Roy and Matthew Willmer:

Needed to improve capability.

"We had decided to improve on our short run colour B3 capability and keep more work in-house by replacing our Quickmaster 46, but we had a few false starts," says Matthew. "First we looked at DI and digital presses, and then at a four colour litho machine, but all were impractical either from a quality or cost perspective."

Cost

"When we heard about the two colour Gronhi, we were amazed by the cost, but assumed there must be a downside. When we saw it, our concerns were just blown away – it’s obviously a superbly engineered machine with the full range of features," he continues. "For the same cost as an old used two colour GTO, we got a modern nearly new press with auto plate, stream feed and integrated dampening."

Fast and efficient

Convinced by the price and specifications of the Gronhi machine, Roy and Matthew took the plunge and began to gain experience of the machine in practice. "We’re doing a lot of two-pass full colour jobs, and spot colours, so fast and efficient wash-up is important, as is reliable registration and overall quality. The Gronhi has performed to a very high standard, so much that it has attracted a lot of new work from the trade," says Matthew.

"Solids in particular are excellent, plus it’s a versatile machine – we’ve used the Gronhi for NCR sets and 450g board without a problem. The economics go further than the purchase price." says Roy. "It’s a big heavy machine, but the power consumption is very low. Also, the parts and consumables are relatively inexpensive so it’s clear that the lifetime cost of this machine is very attractive. Also, we find Printers Superstore a pleasure to deal with. We can call the engineer who installed the machine directly for advice, and if he can’t help us by phone he’ll come over – this personal touch is very refreshing these days."