Edwardthompson boosts digital operation and upgrades web press

23 November 2015

Publishing

Edwardthompson has invested more than £400,000 in a raft of new machinery and equipment upgrades to increase its short-run promotional games production by around 50%.

The Sunderland-based leisure and gaming company took delivery of a Duplo DC-616 slitter-cutter-creaser earlier this month while a Ricoh Pro C9110 will be installed at its 2,340sqm site next week. The two machines cost the business more than £100,000 in total.

Both devices are additional to the firm’s digital arm, which also includes a Ricoh Pro C901, a Riso ComColor 9150 and Konica Minolta equipment including a Bizhub Pro C6500, a Bizhub Pro 1050e and a Bizhub Pro 951.

The Ricoh Pro C9110 has a maximum recommended monthly volume of 1 million A4 pages and a print speed of 130ppm. The device supports media up to 400gsm in both simplex and duplex.

The DC-616 multi-finisher can process up to six slits, 25 cuts, 20 creases and two perforations in a single pass. It features fully automatic set-up and can finish full-bleed digital applications including greeting cards, invitations, brochures, book covers and business cards.

“We’re heavily linked in the promotional game industry, through traditional bingo, and the department has grown to the point where it was becoming a bottleneck for short-run scratchcards,” said Edwardthompson digital manager Daniel Miller.

“Buying another Ricoh gives us more capacity to do our short-run promotional game work as well as items like leaflets, stickers, labels and flyers for clubs that use our web-to-print system.”

Miller said the Duplo device would boost efficiency in the firm’s digital finishing area.

The company has also just finished installing a Kodak Prosper S10 Imprinting System onto its existing Sanden Quantum web press, at a cost of more than £300,000.

“We chose Kodak because of the quality of its product. With our Quantum web this enables us to do a lot of variable data in one pass,” said Miller.

Edwardthompson, which has 120 staff and a turnover of £12m, serves customers in the leisure and gaming industry as well as major brands.

Among its services is the manufacture of complete wholesale bingo supplies including printed bingo tickets, novelty bingo dabbers and bingo pens or bingo markers.