Cohber officially cut the ribbon Tuesday on the press, which is about the length of a passenger van and churns out pages at speeds of up to 3,600 sheets an hour.
While the recession has been tough on the commercial print industry — with Cohber cutting 13 people this year in a pair of layoffs — the roughly $500,000 investment in the SE3600 was necessary in an industry where the technology is constantly being updated, said Cohber CEO Eric Webber.
"If you don't change, you lose," he said.
Cohber, founded in 1931, employs 94.
Kodak's commercial print strategy is to focus its hardware and software on marketing and personalized printing, from photo books to direct mail, said Chris Payne, vice president of business-to-business marketing.
That's become a particularly competitive niche in the commercial print world, as Xerox Corp.'s iGen line and Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Indigo presses also target that market.
The SE3600 is Cohber's fourth NexPress. It is being used to turn out photo books, calendars and marketing materials, Webber said.
Aside from the manufacture, the SE3600's research and development and product development also were done at the Manitou Road plant, Payne said.
MDANEMAN@DemocratandChronicle.com