Smartpress Deepens Standard Horizon Partnership to Scale Online Commercial Print Finishing

Smartpress, the online commercial printing division of The Bernard Group, is continuing to invest in Standard Horizon finishing technology as it scales operations across its Minnesota and South Carolina facilities. The relationship is positioning Horizon as a strategic backbone for the company’s bindery platform.

Smartpress operates a digital-first commercial print model with an average turnaround time of two days. That service promise depends on finishing equipment that can handle short runs, fast setups, and a wide variety of customized applications. The Standard Horizon portfolio has become the answer to that demand.

A deep finishing stack

The bindery platform at Smartpress includes Horizon StitchLiners for saddle-stitching, CRF-362 creaser/folders for finishing flexibility, BQ-500 perfect binders for softcover production, SmartStacker systems for automated stacking, RD-N4055 rotary die cutters for inline cutting, AFV-566/TV-564 folders, and CRA-36 creasers for a range of additional applications.

That is a serious commitment. It is not the equipment list of a printer dabbling in finishing. It is the equipment list of a printer that has decided finishing is a core competency and a competitive differentiator.

“The Horizon equipment allows us the flexibility to offer our customers more based on what the machines can do,” said Russ Castleman, Director of Print Production at Smartpress.

Why a common interface matters

One of the often-overlooked benefits of standardizing on a single equipment family is the operator experience. The Horizon interface is consistent across product lines, which means operators trained on one machine can quickly become productive on another.

That matters in a tight labor market. Cross-training becomes faster, dependencies on narrow specialist skills shrink, and the company is less exposed to turnover in any single role. For a premium online printer promising “brilliant print” with a two-day average turnaround, that operational flexibility is a quiet but critical asset.

Standard’s product training program, along with local dealer support from EO Johnson and Atlantic Graphic Systems, gives Smartpress additional confidence in uptime and internal equipment expertise. When something goes wrong, the response chain is short.

A strategic partnership, not a transaction

The way Smartpress talks about the relationship with Standard Finishing is telling. The company frames it as a strategic partnership for future growth, not a transactional equipment purchase. That is the language a printer uses when it expects to keep buying from the same vendor and to keep integrating new products as they come to market.

For Standard Finishing, Smartpress is a high-profile reference account in the U.S. online commercial print segment. For Smartpress, Standard is a finishing partner that can keep up with the company’s growth ambitions. Both sides benefit.

The broader takeaway for the commercial print industry is that finishing is having a moment. For years, finishing was treated as the back end of the print workflow — necessary but unglamorous. The shift to short-run, customized, fast-turnaround work has changed that calculus. Finishing is now a frontline capability, and the equipment choices a printer makes in finishing increasingly define what kinds of jobs it can win.

Smartpress has made its bet on Standard Horizon. The bet is paying off in faster setups, more flexible offerings, and a tighter relationship with the vendor that supplies the equipment. For commercial printers looking to upgrade their own finishing operations, the Smartpress model is worth a close look.