The 3.2m, 1,200dpi single or dual roll printer, installed with optional Y-axis slitter, is now in full production on textile and flexible media work at Aztec’s Leeds factory.

The firm, which produces mainly trade work in a 70/30 split, made the investment to support the growth it has seen in its flexible signage business over the past two years.

Christopher Jameson, co-owner at Aztec, told Printweek: “We’re doing an awful lot more wallpapers and flexible skins now, and needed a dedicated roll-to-roll machine for it.”

The Pro 32r+ now sits alongside Aztec’s EFI Vutek h3 hybrid press, which was also bought through supplier CMYUK. 

The two EFI machines have given the eight-staff operation significant headroom to grow, backed as they are by Kongsberg and Zund cutters and several other HP printers.

“These two are massive machines. They can print huge volumes – a lot more than we currently put through – but we will have a go and see where it gets us.”

While the team looked around at various printers, EFI came out as the natural choice given the success of the Vutek h3, which was installed in 2020.

The team were quite happy to keep with the Fiery RIP, according to fellow co-owner Tom Wilton.

He said: “We’ve always loved EFI Fiery, so the new Pro 32r+ fits in seamlessly without us having to worry about a massive learning curve.

“Although the Pro 32r+ has a different inkset to the h3, the profile that CMYUK has produced gives us a very close colour match between the two printers. 

“We often run single jobs between both printers, producing the boards on the h3 and the flexible work on the new printer, and the colour works very well even on different substrates.”

Jameson said that having the two high-spec machines was a useful selling point for Aztec’s trade business.

“A lot of the companies that come to us want to have this facility of being able to print tons and tons of panels, skins and wallpapers, but ultimately don’t have the machines that can print at the types of speeds we can – so they come to us,” he said.

Wilton added: “We’ve never particularly gone out looking for business, we don’t really market ourselves, and have grown organically over the years through word of mouth. Generally, we find that when a customer contact moves on to work somewhere else, they take us with them, so we keep the original client and gain a new one.”