A Background

Coates Electrographics is part of Sun Chemical, the world's largest manufacturer of high quality printing inks and organic pigments. SunChemical is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dainippon Ink & Chemicals, a leading Japanese international chemical company.

Our company is a leading independent manufacturer of Toners and Jet Inks. We have three production centres for the manufacture of these non-impact imaging materials. The first is located at Midsomer Norton - United Kingdom and is the corporate headquarters and centre for research and development. This site has production facilities that incorporate the latest processing equipment, making it one of the most effective and flexible manufacturing centres of its type in Europe. The second Coates Electrographics facility is a wholly owned subsidiary situated in Dallas, Pennsylvania - USA. It also has 'state of the art' production capability and has rapidly become one of North America's leading independent suppliers of toners and jet inks. The third toner production site is the recently acquired Turbon plant in York, Pennsylvania - USA.

QUALITY
Coates Electrographics recognises that technical skills and innovation alone have not secured its position as one of the major independent toner and jet ink producers. In March 1990 the company received ISO9001 for our UK operation, and in December 1997 the Dallas, Pa subsidiary achieved ISO9002. The on-going drive in quality achievement has since resulted in ISO14001 accreditation, as part of its Environmental Programme. The continuous quality improvement systems now enshrined by the 'Total Quality' philosophy are reflected in the company's recognition of the importance of quality to its customers.

TONERS
Coates Electrographics has been developing and manufacturing liquid, mono-component and two-component toners for almost 30 years. In this time the company has demonstrated its ability to develop and manufacture products that meet critical and exacting requirements. We have significant experience in the formulation of specialty products such as MICR toners. The development of new quality products for use with digital print-on-demand technologies, including colour, are exciting projects.

OFFICE JET INKS
Considerable resources are devoted to the development of drop on demand inks used in office printers and on demand applications. Inks for office printers are generally water based, and utilize dye and pigmented formulations. A wide range of colour inks are available for the increasingly important graphics market where tight control of colour parameters is required, this is achieved through modern instrumentation and tight process control.