Blueprint invests in large-format capacity

Blueprint Nottingham fulfils a number of hefty display contracts for construction and other large volume industries, as well as vehicle wraps and banners for various purposes. "We've increased steadily but rapidly over the past two years, and in 2010 reached turnover of £1m," said director Richard Monk. "We've invested in the Seiko ColorPainter H-104S and H-74S because excellent uptime and the reliable production of large volumes are paramount to allow us to fulfil our orders."

The 104in (2.6m) ColorPainter H-104S and the 74in (1.9m) ColorPainter H-74S are the latest generation of mild-solvent printers from Seiko and feature Multi-Drop Technology, which varies the ink droplet size to ensure optimum media coverage. In combination with Smart Pass Technology, which reduces banding, this makes the machines equally suitable for the creation of displays to be viewed both up close and at longer distances, and offers significant cost and waste reduction compared with other engines of their class. Both machines were supplied to Blueprint in eight-colour configuration (CMYK, Lc, Lm, grey and light grey).

"We've been faithful to the Seiko ColorPainter brand for the last five years due to the printers' consistently high quality at excellent production speeds. We had to support our exponential sales growth by investing in the next generation of machines, increasing our production capacity with even better speed and turnaround," Monk continued. "Two 6 x 0.5m banners now take us only 34 minutes to print, meaning we can send jobs to be finished and fitted much more quickly."

Finishing capacity has also been improved with the 1.6m Summa S160-T tangential roll-fed cutter. Motor-controlled blade rotation ensures that materials of all thicknesses cut and weed precisely and efficiently. Although designed to conserve space, the Summa S160-T is sturdy and contains media support rollers to guarantee accurate cutting at top speed – both vital factors for Blueprint's high volume of work.

Blueprint Nottingham, which was established in 1987 and has a ten-strong staff, had an existing relationship with DPI's technical director Richard Butler, who has supported the company with technical problem solving and maintenance issues for several years. This fact led the company to DPI to provide, install and support the Seiko machines ongoing.

"We chose to purchase from DPI because Stewart Bell and Richard Butler seemed to appreciate the practical considerations of a company like ours," said Monk. "The installation was painless and both ColorPainters were up and running in no time, despite having to work around our non-stop production environment. Their professionalism and technical knowledge were in evidence at every stage of the process."