Installations News
PrismTech Graphics Adds POLAR

PrismTech Graphics of Burnaby, British Columbia, installed a 30-inch reconditioned POLAR cutter sold through Colter & Peterson of New Jersey. The new system joins PrismTech’s existing 57-inch POLAR cutter.

PrismTech, owned by Paul Milburn, who serves as President of the company, began as a small screen-printing operation in 1994. Today, the company’s 35,000-square-foot operation provides a range of commercial printing services for Greater Vancouver region, as well as a few United States-based clients in Washington State.

The Burnaby printer focuses on point-of-purchase work, as well as outdoor (posters and vinyl banners) and applied graphics; wall, floor, and window graphics; and vehicle wraps. PrismTech’s largest account is described as a large national retail franchise chain with stores from British Columbia to Ontario. “We print between 10 and 10,000 impressions for the majority of the jobs, sometimes more,” said Milburn. “The new cutter is giving us the capability to take on more work.”

The company’s smaller 30-inch POLAR is being used for trimming smaller products like retail shelf strips and decals. This include a number of decals as small as 5/8 x 1-inch for clients like British Columbia Automobile Association, which has more than 800,000 members, serving one of every four households in the province. PrismTech also works with the Western Canada Lottery Corporation.

“We accommodate our customers’ timelines and run two shifts during the week, and day shifts on the weekends when necessary. Last month we didn’t take a day off,” said Milburn, who spent 20 years in the industry before opening his own company. “Everything here is about producing quality work and finding solutions. We have a highly skilled staff and they needed little training before this cutter was handling as much work as the larger one.”

Founded in 1932, Colter & Peterson describes itself as North America’s largest independent distributor of paper cutters and paper handling equipment. The company, with approximately 50 people, is also the manufacturer of the Microcut line of retrofit back gauge controllers and the worldwide distributor of Prism and Saber paper cutters, as well as C&P and Schneider Engineering Peripheral equipment.