Gomer to bring production under one roof

Welsh print and publishing firm Gomer Press is to consolidate the printing operations of its two companies onto one site and make room for its latest investment.

“We’ve got two companies, Gomer Press and Lewis Printers, which are on different sites and  we’ve decided to bring the two together," said managing director Jonathan Lewis.

The reorganisation will see the production side of Lewis Printers join the print division of Gomer Press at its site in Llandysul, Wales while Lewis' sales function will remain a short distance away in the town of Carmarthen.

The announcement follows a recent £100,000 investment in a Heidelberg Versafire CP press with Prinect Digital Front End to replace a five-year-old Heidelberg digital press at the company.

“When this machine arrives it will be the start of the moving process,” Lewis said.

The Versafire was purchased in January with installation set for the end of this month.

“It was the right time to replace the older machine,” said Lewis. “Obviously, the technology we have is five years old so the new machine is a better quality, it’s better built and it’s faster. It can do a longer sheet size as well, so it’s a big advancement.”

The business bought the new machine to increase productivity as well as to add to its portfolio of services: Lewis said the longer sheet capability would enable Gomer to add short-run jackets to its offering.

The company already uses Prinect to run its pre-press setup so purchasing the Prinect DFE was the obvious decision to provide “seamless workflows”, according to Lewis.

Additionally, he said the company was looking at UV curing as a potential investment in the future.

“We want to investigate whether that’s going to be the next machine for us when we change the Heidelberg XL 106 that we’ve got.

“Obviously buying a press takes a long time and you’re spending a lot of money so you have to make sure you’re making the right decision. It’s up in the air at the moment but we’ll probably change the XL 106 within the next two years.”