Big Bang has been filled with engineers after buying a raft of new production kit, including a Konica Minolta BizHub AccurioLabel 320 label press and Moll Compact Gluer.
The AccurioLabel, which arrived in October and is now in production, is the first step in Big Bang’s launch into the label market.
Configured for use with both a 60m/min semi-rotary cutter and a Titanium 330-R reel-to-reel cutter – eight of which sister company DecTek now owns – the label production team will be able to send off samples to customers within 24 hours.
The cutter is capable of 800mm/s, processing an SRA3 sheet in 15-45 seconds.
Mike Beese, Big Bang’s managing director, told Printweek: “We can do high capacity pricing, but on low volume.
“That machine, I could put 200 jobs on there at night, and it reads a QR code, and it will cut, strip, sheet, and wind the whole job while we are sleeping.”
The kit has likewise been joined by a new six-metre resin doming line, which cuts production costs for the firm’s specialty product, badges, by 40%.
In one week, Beese added, DecTek had eight engineers in the studio simultaneously fitting all the new kit.
“We’re very excited about what we have here,” he added.
In preperation, in September, the South Wales firm took delivery of a Moll Compact Gluer. Commissioned on 7 December after three days’ training, the machine has served to cut out Big Bang’s finishing bottleneck on its primary business, digitally printed cartons.
Until now, the two-year old firm had employed staff to glue cartons manually.
Matthew Samuel, general manager and Beese’s partner in Big Bang, told Printweek that with human capabilities limited to around 1,000 cartons per day, the machine – which can handle 20,000 cartons in four hours – will let the firm target bigger orders and cut its turnaround time.
He said: “It’s going to enable us to win those slightly higher volumes that we’ve been losing out on, because [until now] we’ve been pricing ourselves out, but it also means that we’ll have much faster turnaround times.
“If customers want 12-15,000 cartons, they’re used to being told three to four week lead times; now we’re going to be doing that in three to four days.
“It’s just making it easier for buyers to buy, really – and we have a number of customers desperate for slightly higher volumes, so now we can do that.”
Big Bang prints with two Canon ImagePress 810 toner machines, and has invested over £2m in machinery since its formation in 2021.
The firm is forecast to turn over £2.8m in 2023, with the 2024 calendar year currently expected to go up to around £4m.
