Maitland is a busy woman. Since joining Statex seven years ago, she has been responsible for injecting time, money and energy into the company’s extensive training programme.

“For a while, print stopped being the most glamorous career prospect. This is starting to change and I think we can offer a great environment for young people to start up in,” she says.

From BPIF-run apprenticeships to work experience placements for GCSE students and programmes in local schools as part of Young Enterprise North East, the Newcastle upon Tyne firm’s range of training has won it a raft of awards.

Last month, the 13-year-old Newcastle company retained its Investors in People status, originally gained by the printer in 2004. It won Best Training Programme and Best Young Printer in the Printing World Awards last year, as well as PrintWeek’s Best Customer Service award. In 2005, it also won the Learning, Training and Skills award at the North East Business Awards.

A recent series of promotions to director level has also underlined a key element of the firm’s outlook. “It is part of the strategic aim of the company to promote people who’ve been with us for a while,” explains Maitland.

Perhaps the firm’s dedication to training stems from the fact that joint managing directors Graham Minett and Jim Dark both served apprenticeships in their youth. “In the past, there have been shortages of good trained staff in the industry, but we’ve made a commitment to invest in staff,” says Minett.

In 1994, Minett and Dark built the company out of a conviction that things could be done better. “We put our necks on the line to found the company, which has proved to be successful,” adds Minett.

Staff and facilities
Statexcolourprint’s success comes from constant investment in its staff and facilities. Just yesterday (30 May), the company moved into an additional 600sqm warehouse next door to its current headquarters. The move represented a £60,000 investment to house jobs for its online ordering system.

The company has also completely revamped its kit, spending £3m over the past three years on new Heidelberg machinery, a mixture of B2 and B3 presses including a five-back-five CD 74 long perfector. It has kept only one of its old presses, a single-colour GTO, to train its apprentices on.

However, competition is increasingly fierce for the litho printer. “Our main difficulty is that larger printers, finding their business taken over by rivals abroad, are now moving into our market,” says Minett. “We’re very successful as an SME company. We’re not a massive global firm, but we can compete with them,” he adds.

And to prove the point, the company has just won a tender worth £800,000 over four years from a public sector client in the North East.

Investing in the environment
One of the reasons it continues to be successful is the amount of effort and cash it ploughs into its environmental credentials. For instance, it has invested £30,000 in a Carbon Trust survey set to take place in the next two to three months.

“If the heating is on and someone opens the door, the heating will switch off until the door is closed. We’ll be using ambient light and measuring our light accordingly,” says Maitland.

The firm’s green credentials don’t stop there. With ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, and most recently PEFC and FSC accreditations, already in the bag, the firm is undergoing evaluation for ISO 12647, which it hopes to achieve within the next month. The accreditation looks at quality of colour and covers process control for the production of half-tone colour separations, proof and production prints.
“But we aren’t just about accreditations,” says Maitland. “We also aim to reduce our landfill. At the moment, we’ve achieved a 67% reduction in the waste we send to landfill.”

Having recruited nine staff in a year and with no planned investments in the pipeline, the company is aiming to focus more of its attentions on environmental issues.

Its clients, a range of global blue-chip companies, academic institutions, local authorities and design agencies, appreciate its environmental qualities. “We’ll continue to maintain quality, and our big strategy is our environmental push. It’s about taking our corporate responsibility seriously,” says Maitland.

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FACTFILE
Location Newcastle upon Tyne
Managing directors James Dark, Graham Minett
Established 1994
Clients Global blue chip companies, academic institutions, local authorities, design agencies
Turnover £6m
Staff 99
Plant list Six Heidelberg presses, pre-press workflow systems, platesetters, finishing and scanning equipment
Size of main premises 2,000sqm