King Printing and Rotolito Lombarda form Global Alliance for Book Distribution

In 2010, two companies, Rotolito Lombarda, of Milan, Italy, and King Printing, of Lowell, MA each invested in HP (Booth 1832) PageWide Web Press T300s to enable cost-effective short-runs of books, streamline workflows and drive savings. In addition, Rotolito Lombarda and King Printing had also chosen inline folder/gatherers from HP finishing partner Müller Martini.

“Knowing the similarities of our presses and their configurations, our HP representative introduced us at Hunkeler Innovation Days 2011,” explained Adi Chinai, managing director, King Printing Co., Inc.

“We stayed in touch and exchanged technical information about color, paper and the types of products we produced, as well as tips on how to improve performance and print quality. We visited each other’s companies,” said Emanuele Bandecchi, sales and marketing director, Rotolito Lombarda Spa. “We found we had very similar corporate cultures and shared similar attitudes towards customers and book production.”

Despite King Printing being 99 percent digital and Rotolito Lombarda being 90 percent conventional, the two companies realized there was an opportunity to work together and saw how they could offer their respective customers and other publishers a way of benefitting from digital and distributed printing. Because of this, they formed a global alliance.

“The core concept of the global alliance was to assist clients who needed product in Europe, Asia or across America; rather than have to deal with multiple vendor sources, they can come through one touchpoint at King Printing or Rotolito Lombarda,” said Chinai.

Bandecchi and Chinai saw one of the important keys to the success of their venture as keeping it simple. Rotolito Lombarda uses its HP Indigo 7800 Digital Press or its HP Indigo10000 Digital Press to print covers for books printed on the HP PageWide Web Presses. At King Printing, covers are printed offset or dry toner digital. Both companies have laminating, foiling and embossing capabilities to supply virtually identical books.

“No matter where the job originates, is printed or is distributed to, there is one purchase order, one set of files and one invoice,” Chinai says. “This is a degree of simplicity and transparency that has not existed before.”

The range of the books printed by each company illustrates the diversity of the vertical markets served by its publisher-customers.

“We print a lot of trade paperbacks and educational books,” says Bandecchi. “The mono and color books are ideal for printing on the HP PageWide Web Press. We also do a lot of scientific and technical manuals as well as text books and workbooks. Educational publishers are also very much involved in creating electronic content,” he continues. “In some cases, it’s an alternative to print, but in others, it’s complementary.”

“We are planning to add another company to the global alliance,” Bandecchi explains. “This one is an expert on electronic content and would enable us to offer a full service – print and electronic – to our customers, worldwide.”

The HP PageWide Web Presses have enabled distributed book printing, meeting quality and cost requirements of customers. Yet, reconciling the role of print and electronic media platforms is in its early stages, and suitabilities and preferences are only beginning to emerge.

“Print is still alive; the book is still alive; we’re just taking it through its next stage of evolution,” Chinai concludes.

Now in 2016, these companies and their presses together provide a platform for distributed printing, cutting time-to-market and taking book publishing into a new era.