In a move that was deemed inevitable, the two sheetfed printing plants under the Groupe PDI banner in the Montreal area have merged into one location with PDI—LaSalle and PDI—St. Laurent now operating together at a new space occupying close to 100,000 sq. ft. in Kirkland, Quebec, southwest of Montreal. The new location also incorporates the fulfillment and distribution unit, Harling Marketing, a joint venture between PDI and Nikobia.
To complement the move PDI has also retooled its offset pressroom with the addition of a six-colour 56-inch manroland with aqueous coater. The new press joins a fleet of 40-inch presses along with the company’s digital printing operation.
PDI was formed in February 2007 when Phipps Dickson and Integria merged, forming the largest privately-owned sheetfed printing business in Quebec. "When we first got together we knew eventually that we would have to be under one roof," says Jamie Barbieri, company president and part of the ownership group including Jeff Mahar, CEO, and Gaetano DiTripani, COO.
"There are some big synergies to be realized in terms of people and ease of operation," adds Barbieri, noting that about 20% of the group’s workforce was affected by the consolidation.
The company also expects to realize added efficiencies with the new 56-inch press. "It was time to upgrade a couple of our presses so we traded up—two older presses were replaced for this new one," says Mahar.
"The press itself can probably print more than twice what we were doing on the other presses (that have been removed)," adds Barbieri. "The biggest benefit for us is going to be in the development of the new business that we’re going to be able to sell on this press, which is going to be aimed more at short-run publishing and large format output."
The new press is currently being installed and is expected to be commercially in operation by first week of October, a conservative deadline according to Barbieri.
