Print Projects turns to Ricoh to streamline its production

Print Projects has invested £160,000 in three new machines from Ricoh, the Northampton-based commercial printer announced at PrintWeekLive!

(L-r) Ricoh UK commercial sales director Tim Carter with Bishop and Scullion

The £750,000-turnover business has installed a Ricoh Pro C9100 digital cutsheet printer and a Pro L4160 latex wide-format printer from Ricoh, along with a Morgana AeroCut Quatro multifinisher, also supplied by Ricoh.

Max Bishop, director of Print Projects, said the company wanted to streamline its production in order to satisfy increasing customer demand for smaller runs delivered more quickly.

It had been running its Sakurai B2 litho press on a double shift, but the introduction of the new Ricoh machines meant this now runs on a single shift, cutting operator time in half. A Xerox C75 printer has also been mothballed.

“Around 40-50% of our work has now moved from traditional print across to digital,” said Bishop. “This is our first step into serious digital production and it was a seamless transition. We’ve hit the ground running and we’re operating much more efficiently.”

Print Projects produces leaflets and other publications for local government and commercial clients, as well as high-end packaging. It has been in business for about ten years and employs six staff.

It also takes specialty media, such as super gloss, magnetic, transparent and synthetic substrates.  And it came equipped with the EFI Fiery E-83 RIP server.

The L4160 machine runs latex inks for indoor and outdoor use and prints to a width of 1,371mm.

And the AeroCut Quatro, manufactured by Uchida in Japan, provides for variable cutting, slitting and creasing of products, and includes a perforation module as standard. It is capable of handling sheet sizes of up to 365x520mm in standard mode and 900mm in flexible mode.

Bishop said one of the drivers for the move to digital was the desire to help customers manage their orders better.

“Instead of having to print, say, 10,000 leaflets at once and store them somewhere, now they can print half that many. By the end of the year they’ll have ordered the same volume but it means they don’t have to find somewhere to store them and they can make changes more frequently.

“It helps to build trust with your customers, they can see you’re looking out for their best interests.”