Litho Press and Vivid Innovations Achieve Speed with GFI Ink Dispensers

In the large format corrugated package printing market, speed, color accuracy, and uptime separate the good from the great. For Litho Press, a $30 million Indianapolis-based operation specializing in top-sheet printing for major packaging converters, those advantages come from a powerful combination of technology and partnership. They rely on GFI Innovations ink dispensers and a close collaboration with Vivid Innovations, their longtime ink and pressroom supplier.

“We’ve built our reputation on speed to market,” said Justin Hiott, General Manager of Litho Press. “Our clients expect fast turnaround and color accuracy that’s dead-on from the first pull. The GFI systems, together with Vivid’s support, give us that edge every day.”

From Two Day Waits to Two Hour Color Matches

Litho Press has relied on GFI dispensing technology for 20 years, long before automation became commonplace. Today, their ink lab looks more like a boutique ink manufacturing facility: three GFI automated dispensing units, plus shakers, mixers, and automatic proofers, all integrated into a digital color control workflow. The transformation has been dramatic.

“Twenty years ago, we would order a PMS color and wait two or three days for delivery, only to discover it didn’t quite match,” Hiott recalls. “Now we can match, mix, and approve that same color in a couple of hours, sometimes less.”

By producing every spot color in-house, Litho Press shortened turnaround times from 72 hours to just two, giving customers same-day proofs and emergency job flexibility that few competitors can match. Their ink technician can mix small batches on demand, eliminating press delays and reducing waste.

“The major advantage for us is we can run a lot tighter on the number of pounds that we're making,” says Hiott. “Say we’re on the last 10,000 sheets and come up four pounds short on a job. Within 20 minutes, we can have the extra five or ten pounds made on press before production shuts down. That’s the difference between meeting a deadline and missing one.”

The GFI Distributor Behind the Difference

Behind those pressroom efficiencies is Ryan Higgins, the founder of Muncie, Indiana-based Vivid Innovations. A  supplier who has built his business around GFI systems, he runs a network of GFI dispensers across sites in Indiana and Michigan. This includes three of the machines at Litho Press, which process more than 1,000 pounds of ink per week.

“As a small distributor, GFI technology lets me serve large, complex printers without a big production staff,” Higgins explains. “I can support accounts that run 50,000 pounds of ink annually with one person on-site, and save them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in ink costs.”

Vivid Innovations provides the base inks, customized formulations, and day-to-day technical oversight that make the system sing. Each GFI AccuBlend-HV ink dispenser at Litho Press is loaded with Higgins’ proprietary database of base ink formulas, a key resource refined through thousands of live production color matches.

“Ryan is our go-to guy,” adds Hiott.  “He's not only our ink supplier, our chemical supplier and our coating supplier, he is our eyes and ears in the industry. Without the relationship with Ryan, we wouldn't be as far as we are today.”

Over the years, Higgins and Litho Press’s ink technicians have methodically formulated, tested, and validated each base color across different substrates and press conditions, building what he calls a “real-world standards library.” This evolving data set allows the GFI COLORBOOK™ software to account for subtle pressroom variables, such as paper coatings, humidity levels, or UV versus conventional curing, to deliver highly predictable results from batch to batch.

Instead of relying on a generic PMS recipe, each stored formula has been fine-tuned to Litho Press’s exact pressroom environment, often with multiple versions of the same color calibrated for different customers or press configurations. The result is faster make-readies, fewer on-press adjustments, and a library of proven colors that can be dispensed and hit target density in minutes.

“We’ve built a standards library that’s been tweaked, tested, and proven on real jobs,” Higgins says. “When Litho Press dispenses a color, it’s right every time. The operator can trust what’s coming out of that GFI nozzle, and that confidence saves hours of trial and waste.”

Quality, Consistency, and Control

Hiott credits that consistency not only for reduced downtime, but also for measurable pressroom efficiency.

“The presses are our most expensive cost centers,” he explains. “Anything that keeps them running continuously is worth its weight in gold. With the GFIs, our colors are verified before they ever hit the press. There is less rework, less waiting, and fewer adjustments made on the floor. Consistency to press has become tremendous.”

The ability to control color to precise L*a*b* values has also strengthened Litho Press’s relationships with sophisticated brand owner customers who demand accuracy across substrates. Some color matches now have four or five formulations stored in the GFI system, each tailored to a customer’s exact standard.

“One client might want their 185 Red at a slightly different hue than another,” Hiott says. “With GFI, we can store each version and call it up instantly. That’s a major advantage.”

A Partnership That Works

For Hiott, the technology’s success is inseparable from the service relationship that supports it.

“Ryan’s not just a supplier, he’s a partner,” he emphasizes. “He’s dropped off ink at three in the morning. He’s proactive about solving problems before they ever impact production. That kind of relationship is rare and invaluable. The great thing is, it's the ‘easy button’ with Ryan.”

The financial benefits are equally compelling. Hiott estimates at least 20% annual savings on PMS ink costs alone are the result of tighter control over ink usage, more efficient batch sizes, and reduced freight and handling expenses. Because the team can blend exactly what’s needed, there is little to no excess ink sitting on the shelf or being sent for disposal.

Yet the biggest impact, Hiott emphasizes, goes beyond cost. It’s about control and independence.

“We don’t have to wait on outside suppliers or shuffle production because the ink isn’t hasn’t arrived yet,” he says. “If we need 10 pounds or 100, we make it. That freedom keeps our presses running and our customers on schedule. It's enabled us to stay flexible and capable of adjusting to market changes while maintaining a competitive edge.”

Source: GFI Innovations 

The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with Packaging Impressions. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of Packaging Impressions.