Stephen King, John Grisham and Nora Roberts – these three American authors have not only been globally successful for decades with their books; besides their profession they have a printing plant in common, where their works are produced and finished. The Be Printers Americas facility at Hicksville, to be precise, where the words of the aforementioned authors - and of many others – are turned into books, day after day.
The Hicksville site in New York State is located on Long Island on the East Coast. This proximity to New York City is a great advantage, as numerous publishing houses have their headquarters in the "Big Apple," including the plant’s three biggest customers: Penguin Random House, Macmillan Publishing and Hachette Publishing. Hicksville accordingly handles a lot of orders for publishers.
As is common at many Be Printers locations in the U.S., Coral Graphics and Dynamic Graphic share the Hicksville facility, where they jointly produce books, catalogs and packaging for publishers, financial companies, cosmetics companies, and beverage companies. While Coral Graphics began production in Hicksville 20 years ago, Dynamic Graphic’s production processes were only integrated here last year. This step resulted in a significant increase in workflow efficiency. Products that previously had to be transported back and forth between Coral and Dynamic can now all be processed much more quickly under a shared roof. And speed is part of the Hicksville team’s DNA: the 167 employees work swiftly but without ever losing sight of quality. After all, the employees have a common goal: To make customers happy. To do this, the team sticks together, especially if one of them faces adverse circumstances, as the stories of Dana Butler and Adolph Montreuil from the Hicksville plant show (see pages 12 and 13).
Asked about the strengths of the Hicksville facility, colleagues first of all cite the site’s infrastructure, which enables a flexible handling of orders. There is also the extensive range of printing and finishing technologies to meet any kind of customer requirements. As part of the Be Printers group, but also because of the sheer size of Coral Graphics and Dynamic Graphic, the plant can take advantage of economies of scale to produce at low cost. In addition, the plant has everything it takes to implement the ideas of its customers’ creative departments. But all of this would not be possible without the team at the Hicksville plant: They monitor and check each step of production to ensure a high-quality product in the end. After all, the happiness of each individual customer is in their hands.
Coral/Dynamic Hicksville in brief:
Founded: 1984 Coral Graphics, 1986 Dynamic Graphic
Location: Hicksville, New York
Employees: 167
Production volume 2014: 265,170,938 units
Production portfolio: offset printing, finishing, bookbinding
Machinery: 7 offset rotary presses, 18 finishing machines (e.g. for punching, cutting, laminating and coating)
Products: Book components for the trade publishing market, catalogs, promotional displays, mailings, packaging and display cards
Three biggest customers: Penguin Random House, Macmillan Publishing und Hachette Publishing
Hicksville
Population: approx. 41,000
Location: in eastern New York state
Language: English
Other: located on Long Island
