Confidential trade printer Birtwells has taken delivery of a four-colour RMGT 524GX with LED UV as a replacement for an increasingly troublesome B3 Anicolor Speedmaster. “The 52 was always breaking down,” says director Sue Preugschat. “There was frequent leakage from the ink cartridges. It had been problematic for a long long time.”
The Anicolor had been sourced from Germany and was no longer in the first flush of youth. Keeping it in operation was increasingly costly leading to the company looking around for an alternative. “There’s still a place for B3 litho.”
That place for Birtwells is with business forms which despite digital alternatives or on the spot printing are still in demand. “Take haulage companies,” she says. “Should they buy every driver an iPad with the expense involved and risk of damage or theft? The need is still out there and as a result we are doing very well.”
The Accrington company is not alone. One of the largest online trade printers in Germany has been surprised at the growing demand for traditional NCR forms. Birtwells’ customer base is other printers that no longer have the capacity to produce their own forms. “Generally we trade on our reputation. Print buyers move on, and printers do talk to each other, and we gain customers that way.”
The new press arrived in March and has already made a positive impact. The press is proving reliable, it takes up less floor space that the machine it replaced and with the fully dry sheets thanks to LED curing, there is no risk of set off to the sheet above. It runs at 11,000sph, similar to the old press, but has a higher net productivity.
The business employs 50 across a 6am to 12am working day and continued to operate throughout the Covid period. “We didn’t stop at all,” Preugschat says. “In fact we have developed a little bit further gaining some customers that came to us in that period because their usual supplier had closed down.”
She adds that the company is constricted on space so investment is about replacing machinery rather than increasing the number of machines on the floor. That print is ready to ship as soon as it has been printed rather than becoming a pallet of work in progress that is waiting for ink to dry will also help free up space.
