Page 16 - Print 21 Magazine May-June 2019

Currie Group - celebrating success
Currie Group is the largest independent, privately owned supplier to the printing industry in Australia and New Zealand. Representing a market-leading range of equipment and consumable brands, the company is recognised as the premier high-end provider of digital printing technology. Nationwide and trans-Tasman supply and service facilities reinforce its ability to deliver for customers. Growing
from strength to strength under David Currie, executive chairman, this year the group is celebrating 70 years of successful engagement with printers across the region.
The digital transformation of the printing industry has presented printers and suppliers alike
with unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Many graphic arts businesses
had to transform their modes of operation, expanding into new areas, reinventing their identity to meet the demands of the market. Many on both the production and supply sides failed to make the switch and disappeared.
Now the contemporary industry landscape in Australia and New Zealand is more concentrated with fewer enterprises, even as the volume of print produced has remained relatively stable. Currie Group is the paramount example of a ‘new age’ printing industry supplier company. Building on
a rich legacy of engineering
it has not only weathered the transformations of the market,
it has facilitated its customers in changing their business models with equipment, service, training and support.
Celebrating 70 years in the industry, the once printing engineering enterprise is recognised for the line-up of market-leading brands and technologies it represents. It no longer sells offset presses, despite half a century of tradition in
the field. Rather it has almost become synonymous with the HP Indigo brand of digital presses. Known as the leading digital press technology, the HP Indigo brand enjoys unprecedented market
16 Print21 MAY/JUNE 2019
dominance in the region, thanks in no small way to the indefatigable efforts of Currie Group. Across commercial digital printing as well as digital labels and packaging production, HP Indigo and Currie Group dominate the region.
This is complemented by an impressive range of other print production technologies from Horizon finishing equipment and Scodix digital embellishment to Omet narrow web flexographic presses and ABG web converting. A vigorous consumables business continues to reinforce Currie Group’s involvement with its traditional offset customers through the supply of Agfa plates and T&K Toka inks. A dedicated Training Centre and Care Centre in Melbourne continues to raise the standards of production and education for the digital printing industry across the region.
Currie Group’s complement of over 100 industry professionals covers every aspect of printing from sales, service and business advice. Building on this tradition of service and integrity, it engages with long-term customers in almost every aspect of printing. It is continuing to set the standard of successful transformation for the new printing industry of the 21st century.
David Currie and his team are preparing to welcome customers and fellow industry operatives to Currie Group’s stand at PrintEx
in August to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the business and the success of its customers. 21
Above
Founder
of Currie & Southward, William ‘Bill’ Currie.
Development site: ‘Bill’ on the location of the first Currie Group HQ, in the 1980s.
Opposite page below Iconic: The Currie Mobile Showroom 18-wheeler is a familiar sight across the region.
Milestones P– 1949-2019
rinting and the printing industry is a very different affair back in the middle of
the 20th century when printing engineers Currie and Southward hang out their shingle in Melbourne in 1949. Craft reigns supreme with printing companies tightly controlled by ‘chapels’ of union style networks. Letterpress and hot metal are the dominant print technologies with the offset revolution still awaiting its opportunity in the 1960s.
William ‘Bill’ Currie [portrait] begins his career as a maintenance engineer at the Herald and Weekly Times. From the start he is in demand by commercial printers to service their presses out of hours. With work mate Tom Southward, he steps out to form an independent ‘printing machinery service and engineering company’. Soon after, the two part ways, leaving Bill as master of his own destiny, sole owner of the business even as the company name remains the same.
1969
Over the next couple of decades printing undergoes a massive revolution as it transforms from letterpress to offset. This is quite as major a shift as anything seen since in the move to the digital world.
Throughout the furore, the future Currie and Company maintains its
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