What's New

(L-R) Paul, Peregrine and Seth Woodmansterne christen The Croxley Press

Woodmansterne has officially unveiled its new press at its Magna Park supersite in Milton Keynes.

At an event held on Friday (27 June), the greetings cards specialist invited 152 guests, including staff and suppliers, for the naming of its new Komori Lithrone GX40RP advance, the installation of which began in February.

Representing an investment of around £3.5m, which was funded with support from the company's bank NatWest, the two-sided B1 offset press has now been in full production for around six weeks.

The one-back-five six-colour plus coater machine replaced a five-colour B2 Heidelberg Speedmaster 74 that the company had run for many years at its Watford site but that has now been sold.

While Woodmansterne still owns the Watford site, which houses its finance, IT, and creative departments, it began operations at the Milton Keynes site in 2022.

The installation of the Komori, however, marked the arrival of the first litho press at the 8,200sqm facility, which has 99 skylights and 393 solar panels that were installed on its roof last year.

The GX40RP advance provides two-sided printing without the need for flipping the sheet, for the highest register and print quality according to Komori.

Since the press does not flip the sheet, there is no need for gripper margins at the tail, reducing paper waste compared to traditional perfecting presses.

Founded in 1953 and originally specialising in producing colour slides, today Woodmansterne turns over more than £25m and employs just over 150 staff, around 90 of whom work at Magna Park.

Managing director Seth Woodmansterne was joined for the press naming by his young son Peregrine and his father Paul Woodmansterne, former managing director of the business who handed over the reins in 2020.

The three generations of the family unveiled a plaque revealing that the new Komori had been affectionately named The Croxley Press as it "reflects our history and heritage as a business", according to Seth Woodmansterne.

The company's Watford site is located by Croxley Green, which housed the Croxley paper mill, run by John Dickinson and where Croxley Script paper was made in the 19th century.

Adam Osborne, director of operations and IT at Woodmansterne, told Printweek at the event: "We went around the usual press manufacturers, as part of a really long process of probably two years and I’d say that out of all of them, Komori wanted to understand our business and listen to our problems and came up with the solutions for them. They were actually listening to what we needed and then tailoring what they could do for us."

He said the company is running the new press at up to 16,000sph – more than three times faster than what it could achieve with its previous press.

The machine has joined kit including a Sakurai screen press, foiling machines from Bobst, Gietz and Saroglia, two Cylinders, a Polar guillotine and further kit from Bobst as well as other specialist packing lines.

Steve Turner, Komori UK's managing director, also spoke to Printweek at the event.

"To win this order is major and we were very pleased with it. It was quite a long time in the making, there were a lot of discussions and negotiations," he said.

"In the end, we went out with Woodmansterne to the factory in Japan and saw the manufacturing facilities. We saw presses similar to this going through the factory and when they saw the way that we build presses, the care that we put into the build, and the fact that we test every machine before it leaves the factory, I think that ultimately helped with the final decision-making.

"The RP is an unusual configuration; the ability to print on both sides of the machine without turning the sheet over is a major benefit."