Hickling & Squires becomes first UK printer to achieve UGRA PSO certification.
Hickling & Squires, based in Nottingham, has become the first printer in the UK to achieve UGRA PSO certification. PSO (Process Standard Offset) is a colour quality system that has been adopted worldwide and involves working to print standards throughout the business.

Areas assessed by UGRA are the implementation of a quality system (ISO9001), data reception and a PDF/X compliant workflow (ISO15930), digital proofing (ISO12647-7), plate-production (ISO9001), printing (ISO12647-2) and standard illumination (ISO3664).

By achieving the PSO certification Hickling & Squires’ personnel have shown their understanding of these standards and the company’s ability to meet the relevant criteria.

Simon Lowe, Sales Director at Hickling & Squires, says “It has taken a lot of hard work and a great team effort from repro and the press room to achieve the PSO certification from UGRA. We can confidently assure both our customers and prospects colour accuracy and consistency time after time and can provide the physical data to back it up. The benefits for us have been in efficiency, improved make ready times and reduced waste. Press pass times have also reduced significantly due to our proofing accuracy to the printed sheet”.

The certification was achieved with the consultation services of ink supplier Stehlin Hostag, who themselves are UGRA certified. Richard Gill, Technical Sales Development Manager: “Stehlin Hostag would like to congratulate Hickling & Squires on becoming the first print company in the UK to achieve independent certification by UGRA to the PSO standard. Having sound working practices already in place, we have still seen at first hand the significant amount of hard work, commitment and resources invested in implementing procedures throughout their business to ensure a consistently high quality printed product for their customers, and this has been justly rewarded with this certification”.

More information can be found at: http://www.ugra.ch/index.php?news-en&lang=en&newsdetail=20110504-385_first-offset-printer-in-england-ugra-pso-certified

The Open Day started with a tour of their factory including the narrow web label printing division and also the lithographic department.

As a supplier to CCL we were delighted to attend the event to talk to some of CCL's customers and staff about how much more an ink supplier can offer.....More than just Ink. Sean Runchman, European Key Accounts Manager for hubergroup and TCM colour management specialist did a presentation on 'Colour'. The presentation highlighted the importance that colour plays to a brand and how Stehlin Hostag can help to achieve worldwide colour consistency. As part of this we talked about how colour is perceived and the importance of using spectral measurements in the colour quality control procedure. We also emphasised how important Stehlin Hostag and CCL's partnership is in producing high quality special ink mixes and how we help to maintain colour consistency for special colours. As part of this approach we talked about Stehlin’s TCM (Total Colour Management) and how it helps to maintain accuracy and consistency particularly for very specific brand colour reproduction.

The presentations were well received and in particular the colour magic tricks generated quite some discussions amongst the groups – these colour illusions were used to show people how different everyone’s eyes are and that the traditional method of ‘visual measurement’ of colour should not be relied upon.

Justin Battle, Southern Sales Manager and Sean Runchman both pass on their thanks to CCL for kindly inviting them and hope they added some value to the prestigious CCL Labels event. After many presentations, the day was deemed as very successful and Stehlin were extremely pleased to have been invited to participate. It was a pleasure to contribute to such a successful event and to support one of the World’s leading label companies.

If any of our customers are interested in running a similar event we would be delighted to hear from you and would be delighted to put a bespoke programme together based on your planned objectives.

I just wanted to drop you a line to thank you for all your running around for us last week.

I appreciate that there was a rush with the order for the 425 and the Gloss Varnish but you still delivered them in time for our customer Press Pass.

Our Client was very happy with the final job, particularly as the effect they were after was achieved

Thank you to all at Stehlin for your excellent service

Regards
Mark Andrews
A3 Design & Print Limited
14th March 2011

We are pleased to welcome David Clouston who joins us as Narrow Web Technical Applications Manager

David brings twenty five years experience at Director level in the self-adhesive label and security print industry, most recently in the capacity of Technical Sales Director. With specific expertise in the field of product development and new business development we are sure David will become an asset to our team and offer excellent levels of service to our customers.

Richard Gill from Stehlin Hostag explains, “We would like to congratulate Buxton Press in winning the Gap Analysis and wish them every success in their progression towards ISO12647-2 certification. From our work with customers we have seen the tangible benefits that can be gained from introducing working practices to implement consistent ISO12647-2 printing.”

Kirk Galloway, Managing Director of the award winning Derbyshire based magazine printer, who already have a well deserved reputation for reliability and consistency, was delighted, saying, “We strive to be the best in our market sector and exploring the benefits of achieving ISO12647-2 is a logical next step in providing our customers with the best in print - each and every time”

The multichambered feature of our tankers provides our customers with more flexibility when placing their orders and also provides ease of pumping at arrival.

This new service demonstrates environmental benefits having reduced the requirement for additional transport and repackaging as customer deliveries go direct from our manufacturing sites in Switzerland and Germany. This forms a major part of our ongoing EMAS strategy.

Technical Managers Richard Gill, Steve Snape, Jason Manchester & Craig Lock have also attended and passed the ISO12647-2 Lead Auditors course with PMC. Richard Gill commented “We wanted to train with PMC as this verified our knowledge and further enabled us, on behalf of our customers, to gain an insight into exactly what the ISO12647-2 audit companies would be looking for. The service we provide reaches far wider than just the pressroom. We work across all sectors of a customer's business to ensure everyone meets the standard. Achieving and maintaining the standard means that all areas of a print business need to be involved in the process, not just the pressroom. It is also important that printers have the quality systems and procedures in place to support the print standard. Our team are qualified to fully consult and assess the printing companies we work with following the same stringent standards that PMC would insist upon prior to certification being granted”.

UGRA who along with the BPIF issue guidelines for the ISO12647-2 have audited and approved Stehlin Hostag Ink UK Ltd as a certified supplier to deliver ISO12647-2 consultancy to printing companies. Further information to support this can be found on the UGRA website http://www.ugra.ch/certified-suppliers.phtml and our services page

Both the PMC qualifications and the UGRA certification formalise their technical knowledge and competence as a team to be able to deliver ISO12647/2 nationwide.

Jon Stack, Scheme Manager at PMC commented “I am pleased to see that Stehlin Hostag will be supporting their customers in achieving the new BPIF ISO 12647-2 certification standard . Members of Stehlin Hostag’s technical sales team were amongst the first to be trained on PMC’s ISO 9001 with ISO 12647 Lead Auditor course, the only one of its kind in the world, and so are well qualified to provide high quality assistance to customers seeking to achieve the certification”

Stehlin Hostag Four Colour Process Inks are manufactured to ISO2846 standard and have been independently assessed and approved by FOGRA. David Ward Managing Director at Stehlin commented “ We are delighted to have achieved both the qualifications and the certification. For some time now we have been independently delivering ISO12647/2 support for our customers as part of our package of services but this gives us an added dimension and enhances the package of products and services we offer”.

This recruitment will further aid our existing sales team in the ongoing promotion of hydrox waterbased flexo, newv flex uv systems and gecko solvent based flexo where we continue to have enormous success here in the UK.

This premium quality spray powder will be stocked at all our branches throughout the UK and is available for a next day delivery anywhere in the UK. In line with our EMAS Environmental Policy we will be stocking KSL powders in 1kg disposable bags along with our range of Delta PSP spray powder pouches which are easier and cheaper to dispose of.

Presschem will manage the Delta brand for Huber (Stehlin Hostag) in the UK and will be supplying chemical orders directly from their factory. They will be operating a system of uplifting the waste containers at the same time they deliver which is more efficient and reduces their carbon footprint. Empty containers are returned to the factory either for refilling or recycling and the process will reduce landfill significantly.

Presschem Managing Director Scott McGauley said “Up until recently I was an employee at Stehlin and enjoyed a great relationship with everyone including numerous printers in the North East/North West UK. Prior to joining Stehlin I spent 8 years working for a major chemical manufacturer. I left Stehlin as I wanted to pursue my own chemical supply and recycling business and I thank them for the support they have given me. I have a team in place and service levels throughout the UK will be consistently high. We will be reducing waste for printing companies which is a costly business and will offer a total pressroom logistics service”.

David Ward, Managing Director at Stehlin Hostag Ink UK said “Working with Scott was an ideal choice. Having spent 2 years working at Stehlin he is in an ideal position, he has the right background and can deliver on the service principles that are an integral part of our business. Presschem’s environmental policy sits comfortably alongside our own environmental aims under our EMAS strategy”.