The three devices, which are all additional to the Basildon, Essex-based firm’s plant list, were installed at its premises last month.
The company is now the UK’s largest single-site user of Konica Minolta digital production presses, with a fleet of six mono and five colour systems.
This investment forms part of a three-year growth strategy that will see the business increase commercial market revenues to £1m.
The new equipment will deliver additional capacity and improve productivity for the company, which has almost all of its existing presses running at full capacity.
“With the new colour press, which delivers outstanding 1,200dpi, we’re looking to really push into the commercial market. It’s a slower process breaking into this new sector, but we’re proactively marketing our business and doors are beginning to open,” said Colourfast Financial managing director Darren Bacon.
“We’ve now got capacity to cope with additional workload, to accommodate unexpected workload peaks and the new presses also provide us with a business continuity back-up plan in the event of unforeseen downtime.”
The business, which was established six years ago, specialises in producing documentation for the financial sector from Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) to fast-turnaround business compliance documents that are distributed to global financial markets.
“Typically we have 24-36 hours to turnaround an individual project, time is very much of the essence, as much of what we produce has to be flown out to the US, the Far East and across Europe. So the quicker we can get copies off the press and shipped, the better,” said Bacon.
“Say we’re running off 500 copies of a 300-page document, with litho we’re looking at a minimum of 24 hours, but by utilising the digital press we can complete it in under 10. The other big advantage of digital is that we’re producing from the first hour, binding as we go along.”
The company also does all finishing in-house. Its bindery includes guillotines, perfect binders, folders, laminators, wire binders, trimmers and case-binding equipment.
“We used to outsource finishing but we weren’t in control. Managing the entire production process from start to finish makes us much faster, and means that when we agree a delivery time, we meet it, as we’re not reliant on a third party,” said Bacon.
Colourfast Financial has 18 staff and a turnover of £2.2m. £1.8m of these sales come from the City, while the remainder comes from the commercial sector.
