Knight Printing was established in 1980 in Biloxi, Mississippi. In 1989, the company expanded by acquiring Abbey Printing in Gulfport, leading to the merger that created Knight Abbey Printing. Today, Knight Abbey stands as the largest manufacturer in Biloxi and a well-known name in the printing and direct mail industry across the United States.
Current president and owner, Tonya Spiers, grew up immersed in the business, spending weekends helping her father and learning the printing trade. Now at the helm, Tonya continues to drive the company forward, constantly exploring innovative hardware and software solutions to enhance operations.
Knight Abbey prints direct mail for over 100 casinos across the country, and the company recently added six more casinos to its client list. In addition, it produces thousands of political direct mail pieces every year along with servicing financial institutions, colleges, and other markets. Last year the company printed 16 million plus postcards and approximately 10 million mailers along with millions of other materials.
Before moving to roll-fed production inkjet printing, every print job included several steps, resulting in numerous hours to complete. Even after an interim move to cut sheet inkjet, the company still could not handle the additional work that clients wanted Knight Abbey to produce. “No” is not a word we like to say to our clients,” stated Tonya. Driven by her passion for innovation and technology, she sought out a faster, more efficient solution, ultimately leading to the adoption of roll-to-roll inkjet printing.
Ms. Spiers had very specific requirements, especially when it came to the gaming industry. “Casinos love ink so it was critical that we produced pieces that were fully covered in ink with no white edge,” explained Tonya. She conducted extensive research and discovered that at the time only Tecnau offered a solution with a roll-fed guillotine cutter, providing a clean cut on all four sides of a printed piece – rotary cutting leaves a tell-tale white edge on pieces, especially evident on papers from 9PT and heavier. “Finding a company that offered the guillotine cut was a big deal for us. In fact, it was the number one reason for selecting Tecnau,” stated Spiers. In 2023, the company transitioned both its mailer and postcard finishing lines to Tecnau finishing systems highlighted by the TC 7000 TS Guillotine Cutter.
The Tecnau Revolution 50 Roll-to-Roll works efficiently with the company’s Canon ProStream 1800 production inkjet press. The Tecnau solution rewinds rolls at speeds up to 820 feet per minute (250 m/min), offering investment protection for Knight Abbey’s future needs. Its proven reliability provides operators extended run times with minimal intervention.
The Tecnau Revolution 50 Roll-to-Roll features next generation controls for compatibility with the “Internet of Things” (IoT). The system includes natural-language error reporting on the user screen and onboard diagnostics to help keep the system up and running. It even offers IoT options for remote monitoring and diagnostics, automatic software updates, and preventive maintenance aids.
The Tecnau TC 7000 TS Guillotine Cutter is equipped with a cross blade cartridge that offers a single or double knife, enabling single cut or strip removal. It also has a side trimming cartridge with longitudinal circular knives supporting 1-up, 2-up, or 3-up modes, which provides side strip and/or central cut and strip removal for a broad range of applications for color inkjet presses, such as the Canon ProStream 1800.
The company’s postcard line includes the Tecnau equipment along with a shingling conveyor. However, for the mailer line the Tecnau equipment is integrated with the Heidelberg Stahlfolder TH 66. “Knight Abbey has been a traditional Heidelberg shop, so it was important that the Tecnau equipment work well with the Heidelberg solution,” said Tonya. “After any initial challenges were worked out, I like to say the integration became smooth, complementing each other as naturally as peanut butter and jelly.”
The roll-to-roll solution was a whole new world to Knight Abbey, making it critical that Tecnau be a good vendor partner. “We do not have a lot of layers in our company; therefore, we look to our partners to be an extension of our team,” explained Tonya.
Tecnau brought in staff to train all the company’s team members together on the production floor. Knight Abbey is a hybrid shop with employees from various generations, ranging from Baby Boomers to Generation Z; therefore, their learning styles and interests varied. However, Tecnau’s training addressed all of their questions.
Tonya is a big believer in Management Information System (MIS) analytics for accountability and efficiency, and as a catalyst for growing the business every year. “In the beginning especially, I shared production numbers with the plant employees, which excited them. I would let them know that make-ready time was reduced from approximately one hour to 15 minutes. Self-mailers that took 36 hours to produce were now completed in six hours with roll-fed inkjet,” declared Spiers. “The team knew they were making an impact, but they did not know these amazing numbers.”
Once the Knight Abbey and Tecnau teams grew more familiar with each other and aligned on expectations, the relationship has evolved into something truly exceptional. “With the Tecnau equipment, employees now have the right tools and feel accomplished at the end of every day,” proclaimed Tonya.
