The press was sold by Ferrostaal, who last year took over as Ryobi’s distributor in North America.

Mailworks took delivery of the high-speed, 36-inch press at its Hutto, TX, facility northeast of Austin in late August and by early this month the company said the press was running at full capacity "printing profitable paper."

It is the second Ryobi 924A for Mailworks (the company has a Ryobi 924A press at its Spring Valley, CA, headquarters east of San Diego) that has been in production an average of 50 hours per week since early 2008.

Mailworks owner Robert Hodges said: "The first one was the best deal I could get on a modern four-color offset press; it was a demonstrator model without a coater and was only a 4-color, which is exactly what I wanted.

"We found that first Ryobi fit our business to a tee. It’s small format press, it has a small footprint, it’s fast and it’s very quick on the make-ready. And it’s a 36-inch, not a 40-inch; it’s a great eight-up format without having to go up to that 40-inch size."

John Torrey, president of Houston-based Ferrostaal Equipment Solutions North America, noted the Mailworks deal is part of a slow uptick in equipment sales. He said: "The stronger commercial and in-plant printers in the U.S. and Canada are investing in offset and digital presses, no question.

It’s been better this year than the prior year, and we expect more of the same for 2013. But the reality is a lot fewer new offset presses are being sold these days than before the recession started.

"Printers also are being more careful than ever in their pre-purchase homework to ensure that the equipment they do install is the best possible fit for their business."

Mailworks designs, produces and delivers direct mail and last year conducted more than 10,000 print campaigns for small businesses across the U.S. "We have seen a surge in our direct mail business," Hodges said.

He explained: "I’ve tracked GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for the past 25 years and every time there’s been a national GDP downturn, we have a measurable increase in our business; they seem to run in inverse proportion."

One reason for that, Hodges suggested is that companies tend to focus more on marketing ROI during challenging business climates, which means more print mailers, Hodges said.

"Two of our largest accounts have healthcare offices that span three states each and they both pulled the plug on virtually all their newspaper advertising about six months ago and put every bit of that into direct mail," he said.

"And the reason for that is that after tracking the response very carefully for about a year they found the ROI difference was six to one."

Mailworks, which was established in 1987, handles all aspects of the direct mail process to final delivery. In recent years Mailworks has generated 25% annual revenue growth and thus far Hodges said the lion’s share of his production is being done on offset equipment.

"We run digital presses in both our Texas and California facilities, but the whole VDP (variable data and variable graphics) I think is a gimmick that has never really  driven the response rate outside of possibly a momentary uptick," he said.

"The other issue is that digital costs six to eight times more than offset. We do use it for very small runs and certain merged lists, but we feel that offset gives us the real bang for buck for our clients."

Torrey agreed that any predictions of a decline in offset may be a premature.

"The economics of high-technology offset printing will remain very favorable for commercial and in-plant printers of most sizes and specialties well into the foreseeable future," he explained.

"All printers want to maximize production efficiencies and profitability, and there still is no beating offset for print quality, speed and low cost-per-impression.

"Whether it’s narrow web, sub-40 sheetfed, or super-large format, offset will long play a central role in the business of print."