The two presses are due to be installed in early December and be up-and-running by 1 January. Chief executive Malcolm Lane-Ley said they would boost capacity by around 35%.
According to Lane-Ley, the investment represented phase one of a two-phase investment strategy.
Phase two will see the business invest in continuous inkjet technology, which it plans to develop in partnership with Kodak in a deal first announced at Drupa. The resulting 'digi-litho' digital press project is expected to be completed in two years' time.
Anton was an early pioneer of inkjet, with three of the firm's six B1 Heidelberg Speedmasters being among the first to be fitted with Kodak Prosper inkjet heads for personalisation – one duplex and two simplex. It also runs two offline Prosper-based systems.
The two new Indigos will replace six of the firm's eight Kodak NexPresses.
Lane-Ley said: “We’ve been a Kodak NexPress house for quite a number of years and digital printing has sat as a fairly low-key thing within Anton in terms of overall business.
“When I came into the business I felt we had a lot to offer the market and we weren’t treating digital with the interest that it deserved so Gary Knight (manufacturing director) and I started to fix meetings for us both to understand the market.
“If I’m brutally honest, we didn’t think we could afford HP, but they put a very compelling offer to us. One thing that is really appealing is that a lot of our client base is in the corporate sector and some won’t do digital printing with you unless you have an Indigo."
Along with the 35% capacity boost, the machines will enable 330-staff Anton to print on folding boxboard up to 450 microns and print on a range of B2 substrates. Until now, Anton has only had SRA3 digital toner-based systems and B1 litho presses.
“Having a B2 Indigo could not only meet near-litho quality but gives us the flexibility to offer fully variable images and data in short run lengths, which we are unable to do at the moment at the quality level people are looking for,” added Lane-Ley.
Launched at Drupa, the four-colour HP Indigo 12000 will eventually replace the Indigo 10000. It can print at speeds of up to 4,600sph at a resolution of 2,438dpi, and takes sheet sizes of up to 750x530mm.
Anton also announced that its new marketing service Agility will be launched on Monday (21 November) with a new website and 1,000-run targeted direct mail campaign to local businesses.
It will facilitate new jobs that Anton hasn’t previously taken on and work as a marketing tool to promote the new side of the business.
Lane-Ley said: “Agility is fairly small-scale, we don’t have huge ambitions in terms of its growth but are taking a launch-and-learn approach; it’s more of an evolution really. What we’d like to see is this becoming the platform for the Anton core business to gradually take on new products and services.”
£40m-turnover Anton operates from one 15,300sqm premises. It anticipates growth to the end of 2017 but Lane-Ley couldn’t put a figure on how much.
