Expanding further afield
“Several of our UK-based clients have divisions within the EU, and our new Komori presses give us the capacity to supply these new territories and beyond. As a result of recent favorable changes in sterling-to-euro exchange rates since the UK signaled its intent to withdraw from the European Union, interest from other European countries has increased considerably. We’ve had inquiries from Belgium, Ireland and elsewhere. From our location in eastern England, which is within easy reach of several east coast seaports, we are now able to offer not just quick delivery but also competitive pricing to the carton market throughout the rest of Europe,” explains Paul.

Accreditations a-plenty!
To provide the necessary assurances to customers in the food and pharmaceutical fields, operational accreditations are essential and environmental credentials much welcomed. The company has a whole host of certifications for forestry stewardship and sustainability and additionally carries all the major quality management accreditations. It was the first in the UK to achieve PS9000:2010, the standard for the supply of pharmaceutical packaging materials. In 2012 it achieved ISO 14001, the environmental quality standard. During 2015 it also became the first UK packaging manufacturer to be certified with the pressSIGN offset standard. This globally recognized accreditation allows brand owners and retailers to monitor and audit all aspects of color workflow, including file handling, proofing, viewing conditions and press performance.
“Certification for this involves rigorous testing in prepress and printing, and we far exceeded all necessary ratings,“ says Paul. Connecting print quality controls “We also have Komori’s PDF Comparator on both our new Komori machines. Our six-colour Lithrone GX40 was the first machine in the UK to have this system. Currently we’re the only printers to have two installed, and it’s obvious to see why our operators like it so much,” says Paul. “It has sensors that read the printed image for comparison with the original approved PDF, working in conjunction with the inline PQA-S quality assessment cameras that inspect every sheet. The operator is instantly alerted to any errors by a visual alarm, tab insertion, and the precise location highlighted on the  console monitor. Our operators can then make their own judgments on the cause and effect of these errors and decide what remedial action needs to be taken, if any.”
“For example, minor hickeys and temporary variations require different intervention from typographical errors. The connected quality control systems are sensitive to the smallest variations from the approved PDF, and even future maintenance alerts, such as the necessity for an upcoming blanket wash, are indicated in advance. The ability to automatically identify even minute differences, such as missing or incomplete characters, is especially beneficial to us when we’re running foreign or multilanguage versions of packaging involving, for example, Cyrillic or kanji scripts.”

Firstan and the environment
Firstan’s truly extensive environmental measures include an innovative approach to exhaust heat management in the factory. All heat sources are identified across the entire production floor, with extraction made through ducting from each machine to a centralized location where the heat leaves the factory through a single outlet stack. Says Andrew Hartwig: “It’s more efficient, and certainly one chimney on the factory roof rather than a series of stacks is far less intrusive,” says Andrew. “Komori Corporation’s own environmental conscientiousness in incorporating so many energy conserving and eco-initiatives into its high technology Tsukuba factory, its press manufacturing and assembly processes and onward into the presses themselves certainly contributed to our decision to place the order with Komori for our two new Lithrones very soon after we saw them demonstrated at IGAS in 2015,” he adds.