Digital Offset Press Expands Colour Print Business

Increased colour digital print business led BML Printers to expand its operations by buying a Screen Truepress 344 digital offset press at the Digital Print World exhibition in London (UK).

The Romsey company decided on Screen's Truepress 344 to provide further capacity after it had researched the direct imaging (DI) press market.

BML Printers has also decided to purchase a Screen B2 Platerite 4300 platesetter, as well as that company's Trueflow SE workflow to drive the Truepress 344, the new Platerite 4300 and the company's two existing Xerox machines on a single integrated network.

Eddie Lawrence, the owner of BML Printers, said: "After speaking to other companies who had purchased DI presses, it was clear that the Truepress 344 was the best machine for us." Nigel Benham and Eddie Lawrence established BML Printers in 1996 as litho printers and they began digital printing two years ago with two A4 Xerox Docucolor presses.

Eddie Lawrence explained: "We needed to go in to the four-colour market to expand the business but we just didn't have the space for a four-colour litho press.

However, we found that we couldn't handle our growing volume of business on the Xerox toner presses, or the increasing amount of larger format work we are producing, which resulted in about 70 per cent of our print jobs having to be printed externally.

Our decision to buy the compact 'click-charge free' SRA3, four-colour Truepress now means we can keep 95 per cent of our business in-house which will have a significant impact." Lawrence explained that the company's original platesetter was slow to output plates and whilst BML would not be making as many plates for itself, the introduction of Screen's semi-automated, processless Platerite 4300 B2 device would transform its trade business, allowing plates to be produced faster and too a higher quality.

He continued: "This investment allows us to expand in to the buoyant, short-run SRA3 market.

At the moment there is nothing else out there that is suitable other than the Truepress.

Screen's reputation for producing high-quality kit is superb and we were extremely comfortable at the thought of purchasing anything from Screen.

Everyone is really looking forward to the delivery of the Truepress." BML Printers is said to print everything from 50 business cards to 50,000 brochures and provides a platemaking service for the trade.

Its customers range from local borough councils, small-medium-sized businesses and schools, to hotels, holiday companies, local garages, local marinas and boat companies, as well as museums and charities.

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