SUCCESSFUL ARIZONA COMMERCIAL PRINT SHOP OWNERS SAY RYOBI AND XPEDX HELP BOOST PROFITABILITY, DELIVER STRONG PERFORMANCE AND SUPPORT


TEMPE, Arizona, April 3, 2006—Ben Franklin Press, Inc. of Tempe is a $6.5 million annual revenue, 40-employee general commercial print and wide format shop that operates 16 to 24 hours nearly every day. The business started 50 years ago by the family of co-owners Ron, Harold and Ken Clark, when Tempe was a small town with more tumbleweeds than people.

Today, Tempe’s grown up and Ben Franklin Press has grown nicely with it. Top Ben Franklin Press customers include Arizona State University, which lists it as a preferred vendor, plus the Arizona Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Anaheim Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, New York Mets and more.

Ben Franklin president Ron Clark got started in the family business at age 12. Not long afterwards, he was running a letterpress machine and worked in the pressroom for decades after that. He’s operated large, mid-size and small presses at his print company and at other printing firms, as has his brother, Harold, now VP and CFO.

The Clarks know their presses. And they know the Big Iron vendors well. Ben Franklin has four daily-use machines—a 40-inch Mitsubishi four-color, a Komori 40-inch five color, a Ryobi 23x29” five-color and a Heidelberg GTO 14x20” 2-color.

The Ryobi is their newest press, added in June 2005 to meet growing customer demand. Before buying the Ryobi, the Clarks carefully investigated relevant press offerings from Hamada, Komori, Heidelberg and Ryobi.

“We’ve always been focused on the big presses and, frankly, what we knew about Ryobi was its history in the small press market,” Ron Clark explained. “But after learning about all the Ryobi offerings in the mid-size and under range—and after seeing a Ryobi in action at in-plants and busy commercial shops—we really were impressed.”

Originally the Clarks were looking at an A3-plus RYOBI 520 14x20” press, but their Ryobi and xpedx Printing Technologies representative, Don Epley in Phoenix, had an offer that could not be refused—a lightly used RYOBI 755 23x29” press with coater.

‘We don’t hesitate to put any job on our Ryobi press.’

“Not only do I believe the Ryobi press prints better than all of the other presses we have, it’s also just much easier to work with. We can go from an 8.5x11 to a 20x26 and back down in a short amount of time with very little heartburn,” Clark says of the RYOBI 755. “There’s just zero complaint from the pressman. What’s more, you can do all kinds of printing on this press—from full bleed solids to reversed type. We don’t hesitate to put any job on this press.”

Clark also said wash-up and changeover from job to job is a snap. At an estimated 1.5 million to 2 million impressions monthly, “we run this thing day and night and there’s never a problem.”

“We have no concerns that whatever we put on this machine, it can handle it,” added Harold Clark, another longtime pressman himself. “Our pressman is extremely happy with the ease of operation. If you can have a happy pressman and a great machine, the results are positive for your customers and your company.”

The Clarks just bought another press for their shop, a RYOBI 520 series press with coater, to handle small custom jobs for clients. It’s due on the shop floor in about a month. It will replace a well used and solidly performing Heidelberg GTO.

In addition to performance, they are impressed with Ryobi’s commitment to innovation, to meeting printer needs—and with the fact that it’s part of a global multinational, Ryobi, Ltd., of Tokyo and Hiroshima, Japan. Ryobi has small, mid-size and large presses installed worldwide and it is also a major producer of engine die-castings, power tools and builder’s hardware.

After-sales press service deemed crucial

The Clarks are very value driven. They have little patience for manufacturers that crow about how great their presses are but then fail to deliver on the highly important after-sale service and support.

“Anybody can sell you a press that prints, but it’s the service after the sale, the follow-up, the way you’re treated on questions, service calls and after-sale support that matters. That’s when you really find out what the company is made of,” said Ron Clark.

Epley, the xpedx Printing Technologies rep, is there as needed after the sale, checking in every 3-4 months or so. “He will sit down and listen to me. And then he’ll go back and do something about it. That’s really important to us.”

“I know service costs money and that it’s not a profit center for the press makers,” Clark added. “But it is the way to keep your customers for the long term. If you give the customer the post-sale service they deserve, they’ll be loyal to you. That’s one thing printers are: they’re loyal.”

About Ryobi Graphic Systems

Ryobi Graphic Systems Division of Hiroshima, Japan, is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of offset printing presses. Ryobi offers multi-functional offset printing presses, hardware and software, that handle all aspects of a print job, from pre-press to binding. It is a world leader in high-precision large, mid-size and small presses, DI presses and CIP4-JDF compliant digital workflows. With pressroom installations in more than 160 nations worldwide, Ryobi presses are respected for their superior print quality, cost-effectiveness, ease of press operation, high reliability and precision machining.

xpedx Printing Technologies is exclusive
full-line Ryobi press importer and distributor in U.S.

Lenexa, KS-based xpedx Printing Technologies, a wholly owned division of xpedx, offers deep technical support, training, a large parts warehouse, a showroom/demo center and more with a team of executive, sales and technical staff at its metro Kansas City headquarters. It currently has 50 dealers across the U.S. responsible for local sales and service. The company is on the web at http://ryobi.xpedx.com.

About xpedx and its businesses

Loveland, Ohio-based xpedx, an International Paper company, is North America’s largest marketer and distributor of printing papers, graphics, packaging and facilities supplies and equipment with more than 7,000 employees in 250 locations in the U.S. and Mexico. Major customers include commercial printers, publishers, manufacturers and companies across many industry segments. xpedx is one of the largest distributors of post-consumer waste content and recycled printing papers in North America.

xpedx also operates a network of 20 merchant and retail facilities from the U.S.-Mexico border to Mexico City serving manufacturers and commercial printers in Mexico. Other xpedx owned-and-operated businesses include New York-based Bulkley Dunton, xpedx Printing Technologies, the xpedx National Technology Center (NTC), a pre-press laboratory and demonstration center based in Cleveland, Ohio, as well as a network of 140 retail paper stores in 32 states that operate under the names xpedx Paper & Graphics, xpedx Paper Store, If It’s Paper and Arvey Paper & Office Products. xpedx also operates an online commerce and training site for graphics professionals, suiteshoponline.com, as well as one of the largest business-to-business e-commerce sites in the U.S., xpedx.com.

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Contacts:

xpedx Printing Technologies and Ryobi: Tim Kirby, xpedx Printing Technologies National Sales Manager, Austin, TX, phone 512-264-3214; xpedx corporate: Jeff Higgins, xpedx Director of Marketing Services, Loveland, Ohio, 513-965-2923; Media: Erik Godchaux, Media Strategy Group, Madison, Wisconsin, 608-256-4540