Our digital print department has faced unprecedented demand since the outbreak of Covid-19, and over the last few months we have been looking at options to ensure the long-term sustainability, efficiency and continuation of excellent quality digital print production.
Future proofing and Investment are key, to make sure we remain competitive and continue to be able to offer the very best to our clients, and at this particular point in time it is more critical than ever as we look ahead to the immediate future and further down the line. Our market looks quite a bit different now; the focus and objectives of many of our clients have markedly shifted from the start of the year.
With that in mind, we have invested in 3 new digital print machines which will not only allow us to stay ahead of the continued upward trend of digital print volumes but in real terms we can actually now output in just 7 hours what we were previously producing in 14 hours, effectively doubling our production capabilities! It's a big step forward for us and has bigger implications in terms of turnaround times as well as handling bigger, multiple client projects at any one time, plus the added benefits it provides for us internally too.
Quality is not something we ever compromise on at Ruddocks and is always one of our key criteria when looking at any new technology. This substantial investment of almost £200K means consistent and superior quality print is achieved first time, every time
Tristan continued:
"This in turn leads to improved efficiencies and reduced wastage, another key criteria for us as we strive to do all we can to reduce our environmental impact, as well as increasing our competitiveness in the marketplace".
The new presses are also able to print on larger sheets of paper, so where some projects would previously have been produced on our lithographic printer, which is not always the most cost or time effective solution for small print runs, we can now offer our clients much greater flexibility.
Our digital department is definitely ready to take on the future. This investment together with the purchase of the C7100X Ricoh digital printer in 2019 giving us new in-house capabilities with white ink, different paper stocks and the digital replication of spot gloss and will help us to meet the significant increase in demand for digital print as well as being able to push the boundaries of first class, high impact print for our clients.
Find out more about our mission for sustainability here.