The CMYK-plus-white LXi7 was installed at the Consett, County Durham-based firm’s 335sqm site on 4 November and replaced an HP FB500.
“We’ve always had HP flatbeds, but we wanted to upgrade and went out into the market to have a look. We’d not even heard of Jetrix about 18 months ago, but Perfect Colours, who we always buy our printers through, were also a reseller for this make so we considered all our options,” said operations director Carl Gerry.
“The ink costs are massively cheaper, so we thought we’d have a look. We had a demo of the LXi6 at Sign & Digital UK at the NEC in Birmingham and then we went to the Perfect Colours demo suite to see the higher production level LXi8. We decided to go with the LXi7 based on cost, flexibility and speed when compared to our older hybrids.”
He added: “We’ve never had white ink before because with other machines it was a waste if you didn’t run it all the time. Not so with the LXi7. It also gives us the ability to do things for the retail sector like acrylics and two-sided window vinyl, which we’ve already had a few jobs for.
“The support from Jetrix and Inktec has been amazing, they sent two of their top engineers over from Korea to install it for us.”
The LXi7 followed the October installation of the Canon Océ Colorado 1650. Also supplied by Perfect Colours, this machine has replaced an HP Latex 360.
Design Xpress produces a lot of pull-up banners for pop-up systems and was particularly impressed by the speed of the printer.
“The Océ Colorado 1650 gives us the opportunity to print matt, whereas the original Colorado was a very glossy finish. This is great for roll-fed for us and helps us meet the huge demand we have for pull-ups which are a core product,” said Gerry.
Funding for the investment was provided by the County Durham Growth Fund.
A statement from the fund said: “The company’s latest £195,000 investment has received £50,000 of grant funding from the County Durham Growth Fund.
“The fund was set up by Business Durham, the economic development arm of Durham County Council to help stimulate and enable businesses to grow by providing funding towards capital investment projects. County Durham Growth Fund is funded by the European Regional Development Fund.”
Design Xpress works with print management companies, theme parks, and pub and restaurant chains. It turns over £1.2m per year and has 11 staff. The business also operates an HP PageWide, another HP FB500 flatbed, an HP Latex 570, a Summa F-series flatbed cutter and various other finishing kit.
