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History
Slovenská Grafia is the original name of the company dating from 1921 and is the oldest original printing works in Slovakia. The co-founder and chairman of its board of trustees was Dr. Milan Hodža, the first Slovak prime minister of the government of the first Czechoslovak republic. In 1935, the first colour publication made for Matica slovenská emerged from its printing-machines. In 1936 gravure equipment was installed, and two years later, an offset equipment. The tradition of rotary printing dates back to 1956, when the first gravure printers and offset rotary presses were installed and the production of colour picture magazines started. In 1971, the current factory in Bratislava - Krasňany was built. From 1997, a technology for the preparation of a form in gravure without film was introduced -CTG and from 2002, the same was done for offset - CTP. The majority share-holder of Slovenská Grafia is the Grafobal Group, the most important Slovak business group working in the area of packaging, printing, distribution and media.
Technological equipment
Our strategy is to offer professional and flexible services in fully variable formats in such a way as to meet customer demands. The technological equipment for printing preparation, printing and final processing corresponds to this. The level of hardware and software for production preparation allows data retrieval through high-speed large capacity FTP servers. For the manufacture of printing moulds, CTP and CTG technology is used, which ensure a top reproduction quality.
Decisive printing production equipment consists of offset rotary machines KBA Compacta 918 (72 pages of A4 portrait format or 84 pages of landscape smaller magazine format), Lithoman III (32 A4 pages), Polyman (16 A4 pages) and Rotoman (16 A4 pages), and two Albert Frankenthal (72 A4 pages) and Cerutti (40 A4 pages) rotogravures. Rotary machines in Slovenská Grafia offer a high variability of chosen formats and ranges. The printing park is complemented by two sheet offset machines. The top 5-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster CD 105 machine with the possibility of in-line glossing in B1 format and newest 5-colour KBA Rapida 105-5 in B1 format with integrated UV-varnish and speed of 18 000 sheets per hour, aimed at the printing of difficult glossy magazine covers or advertising materials and catalogues.
The final processing using V1 binding is carried out by three Müller Martini wire-stitchers, which lift up the products, bind them with staples and cut to the chosen format. The product is individually packaged in plastic wrap; an advertising supplement can be stuck to it or inserted, and prepared for despatch in parcels stored on pallets. In 2007 the company put into operation a high technology drum wire stitching machine Ferag UniDrum, which reaches the speed of 30,000 strokes per hour.
Soft glued binding is produced on a Kolbus production line, this line belongs to one of the most modern technologies in its category. With its technical equipment, it is unique in the Slovak Republic; it enables the insertion of up to three different items in-between separate sheets as well as on-line pasting of another advertising product. The machine handles 8 000 bindings per hour, where the width of the binding reaches from 2 to 70 mm.
A company focused on customer needs
The Slovenská Grafia a.s. printing works is strategically profiled as a trade company. We know and identify customer needs and offer a high-quality service with a high added value. In this way, we have gained a firm place in European printing and integrated ourselves in to the strong international community of renowned publishing houses and influential printers, whether through direct customers or through partnerships subcontracting for large Western European printers.
We have our own commercial offices in Prague, Budapest and Moscow and an office for foreign trade for German-speaking countries. A new complex information system controls our work efficiency, in full operation since January 2005, which covers the area of finance and economy, trade, production, human resources and salaries.
References
Our biggest customers include the publishing houses Burda Verlag Osteurope and Burda Praha, Ringier Slovakia and Ringier Czech republic, Sanoma Budapest and Sanoma Magazines Praha, Axel Springer Budapest and Bauer Media. In the segment of advertising leaflets and catalogues, our most important customers are the chain stores NAY, BILLA, Metro Cash and Carry, the mail order houses OTTO, Quelle, Neckermann, Kwesto, and the most significant travel agencies. A successful cooperation is being developed with the gravure printer Burda S.G. and the German offset printer Jungfer Druckerei. Our ambition is to bring together the magazine production of publishing houses Ringier, Sanoma and Axel Springer in the European cities of Prague, Bratislava and Budapest - all through Slovenská Grafia.
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