MCI Printing installs RMGT 4-color 9 Series Offset Press

This past February MCI Printing installed a RMGT 9 Series four-color sheetfed press in their St. Louis, MO facility. Graphico, leading distributor of the eight-up sheetfed press in North America, made the delivery. The machine has been up and running for three months, and opens up new opportunities, including larger page volumes of publication printing, for the company.  
 
The machine conserves paper/spoilage waste with a maximum sheet size of 25×36.75”. With the 924 model outputs of 16-page signatures, MCI can add full-size capabilities to the packaging, direct mail, booklet, brochure, and presentation folder printing that the company produces.
 
“This marks our ‘lucky seventh’ press from ROYBI,” commented VP Jacob Icenhower. “Dad started 39 years ago with a duplicating machine, then graduated to quarter- and three-quarter size printing presses” as the company’s capacity requirements increased. “We’ve continued to invest over the years,” he noted, “… and don’t have a bunch of 1990’s equipment.”
 
Before talking with friends a Graphico, Icenhower and his mother had no intentions of entering the full-sheet market due to only having 13,00 square feet available in the plant. “Now with the RMGT 942 press in place, we can compete against the ‘big boys’ at 40-inch sheetfed shop.” 
 
The automated 9 Series press allows for greater production efficiency with a top- rated speed of 16,000 sheets per hour. The new machine also allows MCI to recently grow into magazine work. The machine “inly requires one operator to run” during their staggered, 12-hour daily shifts, Icenhower added. “And we are using fewer [printing] plates and less paper for a consumables/ spoilage perspective.”
 
When citing a book example, Icenhower also reported “significant cost savings on comparable jobs” due to the paper size; a 16-page signature compared to the 8-page signatures having to require two makereadies with the 7 series three-quarter size machine.  
 
He also commented to speed up production workflow, “we may add LED-UV curing down the road.”
 
MCI Printing is a family- owned commercial printing business, with annual sale of some $2 million and 14 employees, is counted among the area’s top 20 commercial printers, according to St. Louis Post-Dispatch rankings.