Michael Schulz, director of Sydney-based SOS, says the print-on-demand alliance will allow both companies to produce books, training manuals and other print items in Sydney and Wellington with distribution services across the two countries.
“If you place an order with us and you need whole or part of the work to go to New Zealand, we would get them to fulfil the order and bill you here, and vice versa,” he said.
Schulz (pictured) said the deal will help clients cut costs as well as red tape in getting work across the Tasman, while allowing them to deal with a single point-of-contact.
“New Zealand’s always been a bit of an issue, because you’ve got shipping, you’ve got the time difference, you’ve got customs. With some work, you could never say ‘it’s definitely going to be there tomorrow’, because of customs. And shipping is not cheap,” he added.
ProPrint recently broke the news that SOS will be the first company in the region to install Kodak’s high-speed Prosper inkjet press. Earlier this year, Astra became the first company in the region to purchase the Screen Truepress Jet 520 digital web press.
Schulz said SOS was convinced Astra would make a good partner because it was also an early adopter.
“We needed somebody reliable and technologically ‘up there’,” he said. “Because they are technologically advanced, we could see they’d be able to work with us.”
Schulz added that the companies had been collaborating on a few projects recently to ensure that the partnership would be practical.
“You have to have some trust. We’ve had some discussions on pricing and technical feasibility, just to see that they can produce the same product,” he said.
Astra chief executive Steve Messenger said: “It is clear to Astra that in order for this supply chain to survive and flourish inventory needs to be removed. Astra is pleased to be able to be part of this regional solution for on demand books.”
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