Digital Press Increases Capacity and Controls Cost

Basingstoke Press has installed a Kodak Nexpress 2100 digital colour press as a strategic investment to increase its production capacity whilst effectively controlling operating costs.

Basingstoke Press has installed a Kodak Nexpress 2100 digital colour press as a strategic investment to increase its production capacity whilst effectively controlling operating costs.

The Nexpress 2100 delivers full digital colour printing, adding an important new offering to the company's technical capabilities.

Basingstoke Press is a member of the International Printers Network and its associates across six continents enable the firm to satisfy a range of print requirements.

Basingstoke Press's print processes include litho and letterpress and over the past 15 years its five Kodak Digimaster 9110 digital production systems and four Digimaster 9150 systems have provided reliable mono digital printing.

Simon Bunyan, production director at Basingstoke Press, explained the motivation for the latest acquisition: "We wanted to increase productivity whilst maintaining our costing model, so we researched the market for the right digital colour press to complement our plant list.

Essentially, the Nexpress 2100 press is the only digital press on the market, that in our view, really controls costs effectively." The firm has a progressive approach towards strategically integrating new technology in to its production processes and has invested upwards of £1m over the last two years.

That commitment has identified Basingstoke Press as a leading print house in the commercial development and application of the latest laser and digital printing processes, said Nexpress.

Its reprographic department supports the activities of the in-house design studio and a fully automated finishing department ensures complete fulfillment of a variety of print products.

The Nexpress 2100 press has enabled the company to add new colour capabilities to an existing job order, whilst maintaining high volume and low costs.

Basingstoke Press produces software-training manuals for leading software suppliers in the global marketplace.

Until the installation of the digital colour press, the manuals were printed in mono.

"Training today is colour dependant - it is a bit like watching snooker.

The user needs to see the colour of the balls to understand the game.

With the Nexpress 2100 we are able to deliver A4 multi-color training manuals at excellent quality levels and in high volume," said Bunyan.

He continued: "Reliability is an enormous factor when printing at these levels.

When we researched the market other suppliers claimed on paper to offer reliability, but when we saw the Nexpress 2100 in action, we recognized that it can sustain high volumes and remain reliable.

The speed of the press, as well as its easy maintenance features, provide maximum productivity." Bunyan noted that there is very little down time due to the Nexpress help desk, the ORC system (Operator Replaceable Components) and on-line manual, all of which he described as excellent.

The new press is delivering a cost-effective return on investment, added Bunyan, who concluded: "My belief is that the digital colour market can be a double-edged sword.

There is a need to generate volume to get the costs down, whilst making a carefully judged cost outlay to generate volume.

We are doing approximately 100,000 impressions per month on the machine and generating high volumes of print.

Our investment in the Nexpress 2100 press is proving a very wise decision.".

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