The Perry, New York-based business also plans to explore a potential move into more traditional commercial printing such as brochures and marketing materials.

"About 90% of our current production is in products like graphic overlays, membranes, switch panels - the type of things you would see in the healthcare industry or new exercise equipment," explained Mike Fitch, leader of digital services for J.N. White Designs.

He added: "Often you’ve got the electronics behind it and LED lights that need to come through the panels so you have very close tolerance cuts."

J.N. White Designs had been using an Indigo S2000 at its 25,000 sq. ft. facility, doing the initial high performance color printing and then moving it over to screen press to finish it.

"Truly the challenge for us is handling various substrates and various coatings," Fitch explained, adding that the company looking at several other presses before opting for the latest Indigo.

He said: "We deal in polycarbonates, polyesters, vinyls, plastics of different thicknesses - and that’s the basis for the investment in the 5600, because it gives us much greater versatility across different substrate lines. It’s very fast and it’s very high quality with substrates that are very challenging."

The company also noted the 5600 can quickly change between different jobs, without the costly set-ups usually associated with digital print production, giving customers more options for their high-value printing projects.

Some parts of the US printing world have been scuffling but Fitch noted that for J.N. White Designs, the market has been very strong.

The company has sales reps from California to Florida and Fitch said: "There are a couple of different industries that are doing very well, health-care and the fitness world.

"We do a lot of panels and tactile switches for elliptical machines and other exercise equipment for various companies."
 
But Fitch pointed out: "We see the opportunity with the versatility of the 5600 to move into the commercial side. From a strategic standpoint, you have a shop that has phenomenal growth on the industrial side and we want to go to our customers for overlays and see if they also need marketing materials or personalized variable data printing for business events."