DIS in Wolverhampton has installed an EFI Vutek h3, enabling it to take on trade work for the first time and increasing capacity to help it reach an expected turnover hike to £5m by the end of 2022.
The arrival of the h3 - which replaces an EFI Vutek H2000 Pro and an EFI Quantum 3+ UV printer - coincides with DIS being voted ‘Small Business of the Year’ at the annual Black Country Chamber of Commerce Awards.
“We were really delighted with the Small Business Award win because it endorses our approach,“ said DIS MD Mark Bradley. “We act as partners working in collaboration with agencies and clients. Our customers have the creative vision and we guide the application. The addition of the h3 complements our values exactly.”
He added: “We are looking to increase turnover and maximise profits through the new printer. It is more efficient, faster and more economical to run. We’re taking our business to another level. We’re very realistic about hitting £5 million turnover by late 2022.”
Historically DIS works with agencies 60% of the time, and the rest directly with clients. The production speeds of (over 220m2/hr at ultra high resolution) the h3 means DIS will now add trade services.
“We’ve never done much trade work,” said Bradley. “We’ve never run our machines 24/7 flat out. The EFI Vutek h3 has so much capacity we will be looking for trade work. It’s opened up so much more volume, and greater flexibility as far as the wide range of materials you can run on it.”
The h3 is an upgradeable, 3.2m wide, hybrid LED printer with a nine-layer print capability in a single pass. CMYUK supplied the new machine to DIS, a long-term user of EFI Vutek technology - it was one of the first in the UK to install an EFI Vutek PressVU UV 180 flatbed printer.
CMYUK is also UK distributor for Pongs environmentally friendly textiles, which DIS - already an accredited fitter and authorised supplier of the Pongs Descor acoustic materials - intends to champion. It is currently testing Pongs’ recycled polyester made waste plastic bottle yarn for its events clients.
Bradley said: “The capacity of the h3 enables us to push for more volume of work, whether it's fabric or whether it’s more traditional. We are growing in all areas, so we are outputting fabric-based backdrops and we are also printing Foamex, Dibond hoardings and signage fabrications. We can create whatever you can imagine, and with the h3 we have the capacity to create so much more.”
