Lake Printing & Design reels in more work with Colter & Peterson’s SABER paper cutter

Two and a half years ago, Tim Goff had bigger things planned for his small commercial print shop, Lake Printing & Design, just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. His family owned and operated business was growing so he moved to acquire more space, and added or replaced equipment including an upgrade to his finishing department. A reconditioned 37-inch SABER® paper cutter with Microcut® from Colter & Peterson has done its job, boosting production and saving time and manpower while setting the stage for future growth.

Conventional printing remains his primary business, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the workload. Digital continues to increase, with direct mail serving as a catalyst since Goff opened the door to that kind of work.

“I originally bought the SABER to increase our productivity beyond the 30-inch machine we had previously, as our business was growing rapidly,” remarked Goff, a 36-year printing veteran. His sons, Andrew and Chris, also have roles in the business. Andrew serves as the plant manager and Chris works in sales.

“We have been expanding more into the direct mail market, which has increased our print volume substantially, continued Goff. “Having the SABER on the floor has made it easy to handle the additional work efficiently.”

Lake Printing & Design has a solid reputation with its business-to-business customers. Goff says the SABER gives him a lot of advantages to handle everything from short-run brochures and newsletters to labels, publications, and the flood of direct mail work.

“It is made a difference and we’re saving a lot of time in the process. We cut down large skids of paper everyday with this cutter,” he said, while clarifying they run one shift five days a week. “With the Microcut program, we’ve improved our times. What used to take us 15 minutes per 1,000 sheets two years ago, we now cut in 10 minutes.”

Goff says having Microcut also helps with the number of repeat jobs they do. The automated back gauge program memorizes and stores programmed cuts, with instant recall for future use.

“We are doing a lot of flat cut postcards, with run lengths anywhere in the 5,000 to 35,000 range and some up to 50,000,” said Goff, who had the foresight to add two new digital presses to his equipment roster last December. Joining a two-color Ryobi press and four-color A.B. Dick press were a Canon imagePRESS 8000 color press and Canon VarioPRINT 110 production printer for black and white jobs.

“The 28-by-40-inch size work we cut down and do is more efficient for us. We are still growing and the SABER makes it easy for us to handle the additional workload,” points out Goff. “The SABER has a double gear box that makes it faster and smooth, plus it can handle larger stacks of sheets when we cut them.”

Goff indicated business has been good and steady for the first six months.

“We typically have a short break in June with the schools being out for the summer break, but things will pick-up again by mid-July,” he indicated. “We’ve picked up more new clients and have increased the level of our publication work to the point where we are starting to run out of room. At this rate, I might have to start looking for more space soon.”