D’Addario In-plant Cuts Makeready Time, Boosts Productivity

Anyone who plays guitar knows the D’Addario name. The Farmingdale, N.Y.-based company is the largest music string manufacturer in the world. Deep inside the 900-employee, family-owned manufacturing company, D’Addario operates a busy in-house ad agency and in-plant printing division, including a prepress department, press room and bindery. Nearly all of the company's package design and print advertising is created in-house. The D’Addario in-plant is anchored by a 29˝ Heidelberg SM74 press, and capably managed by Wayne Carbone.

“Our Heidelberg is a true workhorse, enabling us to turn out approximately 16 million packages for guitar strings per year,” says Carbone. “However, we needed to bring its capabilities up to speed with a comprehensive pressroom automation solution that would help us to streamline our workflow, improve quality and reduce wasted time and materials. InkZone Ink Presets and Closed Loop technology was the answer.”

The in-plant recently installed Digital Information’s InkZone ink key presetting technology, as well as closed-loop color solutions for digital ink control on offset presses. With InkZone, D’Addario’s in-plant pressroom is significantly enhanced in terms of reducing makeready time, decreasing paper waste and increasing productivity. And, with the BestMatch feature, D’Addario is now able to print according to ISO standards and to drive spot colors into LAB targets. With InkZone, distributed by CMYK Distributors, Inc., D’Addario is a more consistent and productive operation.

“We are delighted to welcome D’Addario to our distinguished customer base,” says Mark Williams, director of sales for CMYK Distributors. “When D’Addario’s in-plant division was exploring options for a cost-effective and innovative way to automate their 29˝ Heidelberg SM74, they turned to CMYK Distributors, and we introduced them to Digital Information’s InkZone Ink Presetting and Closed Loop software and X-Rite's IntelliTrax scanner.”

D’Addario’s goals were to improve quality control, reduce makeready time and paper waste and to enhance overall pressroom efficiency. InkZone ink-presets and closed loop technology with an X-Rite IntelliTrax scanner proved to be the solution of choice for D’Addario. With InkZone, the accuracy of the data being sent to the press is consistent and D’Addario is now able to achieve run-to color more quickly than ever before.

For more information on InkZone Ink-presetting and Closed Loop technology, please visit www.cmykdistributors.com.