UK POS specialist invests in latest wide-format digital inkjet technology to deliver high-speed, high-quality print with maximum efficiency and at minimum cost to competitive retail market
Leading UK point-of-sale specialist Kolorcraft is the first company in the world to invest in an Inca Onset S40 wide-format UV inkjet printer. Supplied by Inca's exclusive distributor Fujifilm, the Onset S40 was beta tested thoroughly by Kolorcraft prior to its global launch earlier this month.
The investment is part of Kolorcraft's aggressive strategy to grow the company by using the very latest technology to provide high quality, value-added, digital print very competitively. Based in Ossett, West Yorkshire, the company has a turnover of £25m with 250 staff working around the clock in its 180,000sq ft production and warehousing facilities. It provides complete design, print and fulfilment solutions to leading High Street and Out-of-Town retail clients.
"These are exciting times for us," says Phil Findley, managing director of Kolorcraft. "We have strengthened our management team and are investing in leading-edge technology to deliver top quality whilst shortening the route to market, so that we mirror our client's objectives and maximise their budgets. We exhaustively researched the market before we chose the Onset S40. Inca is a well-established manufacturer with a good reputation for delivering next-generation technology and Fujifilm provides excellent ink and sales support. This combination plus the quality, productivity and flexibility of the machine were all the key decision factors behind this investment. Not only has the Onset significantly increased our production capacity, but it has also has enabled us to offer competitive new products and compete in new sectors. Quite simply our strategy is to do to more of what we do well to grow the business."
Sited alongside Kolorcraft's existing KBA large format and Heidelberg B1 offset presses and its multi-colour screen printing lines, the new Onset S40 is operational 24 hours a day and has added considerable digital print capacity and versatility to the company. Part of the successful Onset series of high-quality, high-productivity printers, Kolorcraft's high-performance Onset S40 is an automated six-colour inkjet model capable of printing at 600 dpi and delivering 94 full bed sheets at (3.14 x 1.6m) per hour.
Martin Hampshaw, sales and marketing director at Kolorcraft, says: "The POS market is highly competitive and to be successful we have to work smarter, use the latest technology to improve quality, make efficiencies and reduce costs. The quality and speed of the Onset S40 is important. It fills the production gap between screen printing and large-format litho perfectly to allow us to handle any project quickly and efficiently. It reproduces brand and corporate colours accurately, as well as allowing us to print edge-to-edge and use a wide range of materials up to 40mm thick. Using variable data to deliver regionalised or store specific campaigns offers great benefits to our clients and reflects the ever-changing retail arena.
"The flexibility and the quality of the Onset S40 is already helping us deliver new products to our customers and enabled us to open up new markets. We recently produced large format fashion graphics for one client which featured 30 different image changes. Using conventional technology, this would have involved producing 120 large format plates and considerable make-ready times. The Onset S40's direct-to-print ability enabled us to bring forward the in-store date and deliver cost savings back to our client.
"The addition of the Onset S40 to the Onset family means that there is now a configuration available with an appropriate business model to suit any high volume, wide format printer." comments Keith Harley, head of marketing, wide format, FUJIFILM Europe. "Kolorcraft's use of the Onset S40 to produce new products for its customers and open up new markets is an excellent example of what can be achieved by choosing the best configuration to suit their needs."
