High quality large-format at Crescent Press

When Crescent Press made the move to digital, the company was determined to maintain its reputation for excellence. High quality and faster turn-around of jobs were their key considerations.

When choosing a large-format digital solution, Crescent Press put emphasis on achieving the best results throughout so that its inkjet applications would be produced to the same exacting levels as it had always achieved using offset.

“We are being asked to produce jobs such as interior and exterior banners plus display boards. And, although we started by outsourcing this type of work, it was obvious that our future plans would need to include our own wide-format production capabilities,” says Paschal Edwards, operations manager at Crescent Press.

High quality

Crescent Press acquired the company to whom it had been outsourcing all wide-format production requirements, and this included inheriting some solvent-based print-and-cut machines and an early hybrid UV-curable system. Recognising that the need to upgrade was essential, investment was made into a series of newer roll-fed printers but the increase in demand for printing direct-to-rigid substrates meant that a high-quality flat-bed unit was required and, if it could work with roll-fed materials that would be an added bonus.

Challenge:

“Although we started by outsourcing this type of work, it was obvious that our future plans would need to include our own wide-format production capabilities… High quality is extremely important to us, and this meant we needed to assess all the options.”

To justify our investment and had decided on a more realistic investment that suited our customer and budgetary requirements,” Edwards continues. “The EFI H1625 shares many of the characteristics of its larger brother without compromising on value for money, reliable inks and good service and back-up when required.”

The EFI H1625 LED wide-format printer is able to print direct to boards up to 3m in length, with fast change-over from rigid to roll- fed materials as required. Designed to be an entry- and mid-level production printer it incorporates dual white ink channels that complement its CMYK ink-set, and its eight levels of greyscale ensure the highest quality of gradients and solid colours. Supplied with EFI’s Fiery® XF digital front end for fast and accurate processing and RIPping of jobs, the resulting end-to-end workflow is highly efficient and results in optimised uptime.

Working direct with rigid substrates is also a boost to productivity. “Instead of mounting finished roll-fed prints onto boards we can now output straight to rigid sheets, and this means that the manual, time- consuming labour element has largely been eliminated,” says Edwards.

Solution:

Andy Matthews, Managing Director added “After finalising the two primary contenders, we opted for the EFI H1625 LED printer.” The EFI H1625 LED wide-format printer is able to print direct to boards up to 3m in length, with fast change-over from rigid to roll-fed materials as required.”

“The result is that we’ve increased productivity so that our production teams can now concentrate on what they do best, and that’s to generate more print without the need to add more staff members.

A major key to the H1625’s success is its LED technology which not only generates a greener environment but it also broadens the range of materials which can be printed thanks to its ‘cool cure’ capabilities that prevent surface damage or buckling of the substrate through over-heating. This valuable asset also enables thin and traditionally difficult films to be printed, creating new application possibilities.

“The EFI H1625 LED has given us a new direction in the type of job we can now produce, its quality matches the specifications required by our customers, and the inclusion of white ink means we can produce applications which weren’t possible when just relying on standard colour options,” concludes Matthews. “Our intention is to increase our turnover while maintaining sensible margins and the addition of this wide-format printer is allowing us to do this in return for a modest investment cost.”