Installed at the end of 2018, the new press was taken on at the company’s Eastbourne plant to aid with the production of high volumes of books on tight turnarounds.
The installation increases the book printer's digital capacity by more than 20%.
Divisional general manager Martin Collyer said: “After fully reviewing the market, we considered that the Canon was the right technology to fit our needs in terms of output, quality and waste for POD and ASR products.
“The project represents an increase in capacity, driven by the need to supply customers with increasingly quicker turnarounds, allowing them to reach their end customers more quickly, and delivering consistent security of supply during the peak autumn period.”
The ColorStream will enable CPI Antony Rowe to migrate 1.5 million more books to inkjet and it will integrate with the firm’s existing cut-sheet systems to allow for flexibility.
The system prints at speeds up to 100m/min on reels up to 560mm wide with a resolution up to 1,200dpi. It will allow CPI Antony Rowe to transfer some of its existing mono work into colour production.
The line was configured with a Tecnau U40 Q A 22 inch Zero Speed Splicer and a R9 Rewinder.
CPI Antony Rowe’s Eastbourne site also runs a ColorStream 6000 and Varioprint 6320 from Canon Océ as well as a Xerox iGen 5. The CPI Group subsidiary has a second base in Chippenham and is set to turn over £37m in 2019.
