Example: Finding out about the Printing Trade in our area

Let's start by trying to find out how many local printers have published web sites of their own.

An obvious place to start is the Yellow Pages web site.

A search on "Printers, Norwich", refined to "Printers & Lithographers, Norwich", yields web addresses for four companies located within the City of Norwich.   (Remember that Yell.com doesn't quote a web address for every company listed.)

Four CP (UK) Ltd	www.fourcp.co.uk
Waterloo Road, Norwich NR3 3HY
Hollinger Print	www.hollinger.co.uk	New Plant
Burnet Road, Norwich NR3 2BS		Meet the Team

PS Digital Origination	www.psdigital.co.uk	Hardware & Software
Muspole Street, Norwich NR3 1DJ
Thorndick & Dawson Ltd	www.thorndicks.co.uk	Plant List
Pottergate, Norwich NR2 1ED

The Norfolk Chamber of Commerce business directory contributes another half dozen web sites.

Anglia Digital Print Ltd	www.angliadigitalprint.co.uk	Technical Guide
Burnet Road, Norwich NR3 2BS
Arrow Screen Print Company	www.arrowscreenprint.co.uk
Fletcher Way, Norwich NR3 3ST
B D & H Limited	www.bdandh.co.uk
Europa Way, Norwich NR1 2EN
Crowes Ltd	www.crowes.co.uk	Our Services in 3 sections:
Hurricane Way, Norwich NR6 6JB		Pre-press, Printing, Finishing
Interprint	www.interprint-services.co.uk	Plant List
County Hall, Norwich NR1 2DL
Jarrold Printing	www.jarrold-printing.co.uk	Print Machinery
Whitefriars, Norwich NR3 1SH

From the Broadland District Council business directory, we can glean half a dozen more on the outskirts of Norwich:

Archant Print	www.archant.co.uk	Archant Print
Thorpe St Andrew, Norwich NR7 0HT
Catton Print	www.cattonprint.co.uk
Sprowston, Norwich NR7 8SX
Go-Wise Print	www.gowise.co.uk	Plant List
Thorpe St Andrew, Norwich NR7 0PT
Norwich Colour Print Ltd	www.norwichcolour.co.uk	Plant List
Drayton, Norwich NR8 6RL		With pictures!
Polyprint Mailing Films Ltd	www.polyprint.co.uk
Rackheath, Norwich NR13 6LJ
Saxon Group	www.saxongroup.com	Plant List (PDF)
Drayton, Norwich NR6 5DR

From the printed version of the Yellow Pages, here are another half dozen which didn't turn up on our Internet search:

Broadland Digital Ltd	www.broadlanddigital.co.uk
Vulcan Road North, Norwich NR6 6AQ
Castle Colour Press Ltd	www.castlecolour.co.uk	Machinery
Bowthorpe, Norwich NR5 9JJ		With pictures!
Colour-print	www.col-print.co.uk
Fletcher Way, Norwich NR3 3ST
Hangar Press Ltd	www.hangar-press.co.uk	Plant List
Oak Street, Norwich NR3 3AQ
Minuteman Press	www.norwich.minutemanpress.com
Ber Street, Norwich NR1 3AD
Robbprint	http://www.robbprint.co.uk/
Thorpe Road, Norwich NR1 1EN

For comparison, here are the big printing firms (book printers) from Bungay and Beccles:

Clays Ltd	www.clays.co.uk	Plant List
Bungay, Suffolk NR35 1ED
... owned by St Ives PLC	www.st-ives.co.uk	Careers
sites at Bungay, Peterborough, etc.		Plant List for each site

William Clowes Ltd	www.clowes.co.uk	Services
Beccles, Suffolk NR34 9QE

That gives us a representative group of 25.   Let's think about the value of what we've found so far.

(Remember that we are reviewing web sites, not passing judgment on the companies themselves, and we're looking at web sites from the point of view of the job hunter.)

The job hunter is asking questions like, "How far would my existing skills be of value to this company?", "Would I fit in to the team?", "What further training might I need?".

Notice that 12 of our 22 Norwich web sites give a detailed list of the machinery that the company uses.

Imagine that you are a machine minder with some previous experience in the trade.   If "your" machine is on one of the lists, you've found a company worth approaching.

But what if your experience is slightly out of date?   How do you find out which of today's machines is most similar to the one you know?

In our 12 plant lists, one name occurs repeatedly:   "Heidelberg".   Can we do something with that?

A Google search on "Heidelberg print machines" gave only brokers of second hand machines.   Playing a hunch, we flipped into German, and used Google.de with "Heidelberg Druckmaschinen" as the search key.   Bingo!   There's a German/English switch on the light grey navigation bar.

Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG	www.heidelberg.com	Products & Solutions
Heidelberg, Germany

From the "Products & Solutions" page, the quickest way to arrive at descriptions of individual machines is to scroll down past a section called "Solutions" to "Product Areas", and explore the links in that section.

Most of our local printers are using Sheetfed Offset equipment.   Four machines relevant to the plant lists we've visited are:

    Printmaster GTO 52     Speedmaster SM 74     Speedmaster SM 102     Speedmaster CD 102

Notice that even more information on each machine is available using further links in the grey panel on the left of each page.

The numbers "52", "74" and "102" refer to the largest sheet of paper that each machine can handle, so the GTO 46, used by at least 3 printers in Norwich, isn't necessarily very different from the GTO 52 featured above.

For general background, see the Company History pages, and the Glossary of Printing Terms.

One of the pleasures of Internet research is the occasional oddity that pops up unexpectedly.   If you like vintage commercial vehicles, log cabins, and/or portholes, give Hubert Sternberg a visit.

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[ 16 April 2004 ]