MALVERN, Pa. - January 30, 2019 - Ricoh USA Inc. announced the Schiele Group, a versatile, family-owned commercial printer, has partnered with Ricoh to deliver even more of what customers expect to see from their business. By adding two RICOH Pro C9210 and two RICOH Pro 8220 platforms, along with finishing equipment, Schiele can now print on thicker and larger media, introduce new applications such as square-bound books, and improve throughput. With Ricoh, Schiele has added new revenue streams; is driving down operating costs and turn times; and delivering higher uptime and greater throughput.
In 1948, Henry Schiele established the print shop that would come to be known as the Schiele Group, printing at night out of a barbershop. Today, 70 years later, Schiele Group has grown to $34 million in sales, 140 employees and more than 110,000 square feet of manufacturing space in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. In addition to growing in size and sales, the Schiele Group, now run by Henry’s son John, has spent the intervening decades significantly expanding its capabilities, too. From large format to booklets, the company prides itself on meeting a diverse array of print needs.
“Our customers work with us because we deliver everything, every time, everywhere. Our goal is to be our customers’ sole supplier,” said John Schiele, President, Schiele Group. “Our previous high-end sheet-fed device was reaching its end-of-life, so we began looking for partners and platforms that could continue to grow our value to our customers. Our previous partner had all of this information at their fingertips – my color clicks, my black and white clicks, and so on – but they never came to me and said, ‘Hey, we noticed this, so we think this would help your business.’ Instead, they always just tried to upsell me to the most expensive product. On top of that, my cost per click increased eight percent per year, which quickly began to cut into my margins and drive prices up. Working with Ricoh was completely different. They came in, they asked questions, they learned about my business, and they provided recommendations tailored to my needs. Ricoh delivered – with a better solution that checked all our boxes.”
The ability to print to longer paper lengths was a major selling point for Schiele. The company can use this flexibility to deliver a wider variety of offerings to its customer base, as well as affordably print proofs for large format work. Schiele and its customers rest assured that the proof will match the final thanks to shop-wide G7 color matching and the C9210’s in-line color calibration.
The RICOH Pro C9210 color sheet-fed printer provides an affordable, predictable way for businesses to maximize revenue due to its uptime and reliability. The 135-page-per-minute (ppm) press supports media weights up to 470 gsm and has the capacity to run the longest paper lengths in the market today: 49 inches simplex and 40 inches auto-duplex. Complementing its laser resolution of 2,400 x 4,800 dpi and large color gamut, in-line sensors automatically aid improved front-to-back registration and color calibration, without requiring advanced operator skills. The larger 17-inch Smart Operation Panel brings new job- and workflow-management options directly to the device, on a single screen, including the ability to monitor and manage print jobs remotely through either an EFI Color Controller or the RICOH TotalFlow Server.
Meanwhile, the black-and-white, 136-ppm RICOH Pro 8220 is perfectly positioned to boost Schiele Group’s growing book business. It offers a High Capacity Interposer (HCI), which is a two-tray system with 1,750-sheet-per-tray capacity for post-fusing insertion of front and back covers or color inserts, printed on offset or digital printers, into books and manuals. The RICOH Pro 8220 also provides users tight registration to help ensure more precise, clean output and delivers the ability to print on a wide variety of substrates without sacrificing speed or quality.
As part of the deal, Schiele has implemented various finishing equipment, including stitchers and binders that allow the company to produce, among other applications, square-bound books, which have a professional look that is in demand. This new equipment pairs with the new 8220 platforms to significantly improve turn times on book orders while providing a higher-quality product.
“The best thing about my job, is finding ways to help people succeed,” said Sho Yamazaki, Vice President, Strategy and Marketing, Commercial & Industrial Printing Business Group, Ricoh USA, Inc. “When we first sat down with the Schiele team, their costs were high and increasing. John wanted to address that, but he also wanted to expand his capabilities, so he could continue to grow. The combination of our strong understanding of the industry and our broad portfolio of best-in-breed technology, we were able to deliver big for John and his customers. Our competitive pricing and ability to work with his needs allowed him to not only replace his aging presses, but to reinvest the savings in finishing equipment and still have some left over for the bottom line.”