Business newsline by Tony Seymour

Major expansion is well under way at York-based commercial printers Wood & Richardson.

John Richardson, managing director of Wood & Richardson, looks to the future with the £1.5m investment. Picture by Nigel Holland

The £1.5 million programme, due for completion by summer, will enhance all aspects of the existing services and feature a range of new facilities at the digital and lithographic printers in Haxby Road.

Total floor space will nearly be doubled in the production area to 500 sq metres.

As part of the plan, Wood & Richardson, which counts Nestl, CGU and Shepherd among its customers, is launching a new company logo. The shape of a person blowing a clarion heralds a new era in the company's development and similarly a new age in print with the digital revolution.

The building extension will be completed by the end of May, and the new £400,000 Xeikon DCP 50D digital printer will be installed in June.

Digital printing takes imaging directly from artwork to output, saving the time and costs involved in conventional platemaking.

John Richardson, managing director of Wood & Richardson, said: "The print industry is evolving at its greatest pace and we need to be well-equipped to ensure our customers have the best choice of printed material."

This was endorsed by Michael Wake, production manager, who highlighted the key benefit to customers: "Quality, on-time production through greater control in the planning and processing of the work - this will be achieved through bringing in-house more of the associated printing processes such as pre-press, and the investment in the highest specification presses."

Founded in 1905, the family tradition is still maintained through the present managing director, John Richardson, who started off his career as a compositor. His wife Judy, works in production management within the company, and his son, 23, James, is a machine minder.

The company has been at its present location at Royden House for over ten years and has increased the staffing levels by over a third in the last three years to 42.

The primary business catchment area has been York and North Yorkshire and the investment programme will allow the company to widen its customer base.

Mr Richardson, who has been in the business 33 years - the last 20 as managing director - said: "For a company of our size to make an investment of this scale is either foolish or very brave - I hope it's the latter. We invested in state-of-the-art technology to secure our future.

"The Xeikon digital press offers new levels of speed and flexibility, whilst matching traditional litho quality.

"Digital printing offers many advantages to customers, including the ability to vary image, text information within a print run, and the opportunity to print on a wide range of materials including plastic, for wipe clean and waterproof surfaces."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.