SHERBURNE – The Mid-York Press, Inc. is taking advantage of the “down” market by upgrading and expanding its plant and equipment. The company will purchase $3.5 million in new manufacturing equipment including being the U.S. launch customer for two items and will spend approximately $650,000 in facility expansion.

The company will be adding two new BOBST Blanking Die Cutters. The Expert-cut 106PER die cutters are the latest auto-stripping die cutters offered by the Swiss company. The die cutters are used to cut boxes and cartons out of printed fiberboard on which the company prints. According to Vice President and COO Pat Dowdall, the new, much larger machines will greatly increase capacities.

“These die cutters are much larger than any we have ever had at Mid-York aand have required the 3,200 sq. ft. addition to the northeast corner of our manufacturing plant,” Dowdall said. “Our current building wasn’t able to accommodate the height requirements of the new equipment. Despite the sheer size of the new equipment, the machines are extremely flexible and will allow us to do more work and set-up each job much faster,” Dowdall added.

In addition to the die cutters, Mid-York will also purchase one and possibly two new folder-gluers from Bobst. The gluers (which are used to fold and glue together the 100-200 million boxes and cartons Mid-York manufactures each year) will be the first to arrive. The first, a Bobst Masterfold, will be the first installation in the United States with the new Speedwave set-up device.