The Imaging Centre invests £500,000 to improve quality, reduce waste and lead times
Specialist greeting card digital printer The Imaging Centre has invested over £500,000 in the past month on machinery to further increase capacity and reduce lead time.
Looking to constantly innovate for its for its 400-plus publisher clients, the Marden-based family business has welcomed a new foiler, die-cutter, multi-finisher, laminator, cutter-creaser, and replacement press which will all be on line in the next couple of weeks.
“In the last month we’ve committed to over £500,000 in upgrading and adding to our inventory, in our continued efforts to continue to improve quality, reduce waste and drive down turnaround times,” MD Adam Short told PG Buzz.
“It allows us to empower independent publishers with exceptional, market-ready greeting cards, delivered faster than ever, by increasing efficiency and reducing lead times,” he added.
The Duplo DSM-1000 B2 die cutter brings intricate, high-quality die-cutting in-house as the precision-driven machine allows beautifully shaped designs and detailed cut-outs as well as custom packaging with advanced registration technology and automated waste removal.
Complementing this are the recent investments in the Duplo DC-746 multi-finisher and Bagel iLAM Pro laminator giving seamless cutting, creasing, and high-end lamination and foiling while an additional fourth DC746 adds to the DC fire power as the cutter-creaser utilises a barcode reader so it can be left to run without supervision even with several different jobs stocks and weights, producing up to 120 cut cards per minute.
“There’s also a second Bagel Laminator, due to the growing popularity in digital foiling,” Adam added. “This will double our capacity to apply foil without the need of foil blocks and with very low minimums giving our publishers even more flexibility and speed.
“The Bagel can run gold and silver foil at 10 metres per minute, is very easy to set up and use, allowing is to keep all foiling in-house.”
The final addition will be the upgrade to the long-serving HP7800 press, with a brand-new state of the art HP Indigo 7K due to be installed in March as a like-for-like replacement, giving the same quality customers are used to with far more efficiency.
This all comes shortly after the company has introduced a night shift meaning that the machines can run for 24 hours a day.
“This means that, surges aside, we can confidently offer a three-day turnaround, but our ultimate aim is to work towards offering a 24-hour turnaround,” revealed Adam.
