The device arrived at FaberExposize’s Leeds site at the start of December, and was due to be up and running by the middle of the month.
Managing director of FaberExposize UK, Iain Clasper-Cotte, told Printweek that while the firm already has a 3.5m-wide Monti Antonio 91-3600 calender, it would have to miss out on work if the machine ever went down.
He added: “We need a bit of maintenance shortly [on the Monti Antonio]. And it made us realise, actually, that it’s the only area of the production centre where we didn’t have redundancy.”
Now that the company has taken on a lot more work in exhibitions and retail following Covid, it needs to reliably be able to turn around work with days or hours’ notice, according to Clasper-Cotte - something that an unexpected downage could upset.
“The Montis are amazingly robust machines, but they do need maintenance; they do have some downtime, and now we’re running 24 hours a day here, it just seems sensible to do that,” he added.
The Klieverik represents the latest installation in a recent spate of investments for the firm, which total £1m, including: the firm’s third Agfa Avinci CX3200 dye-sublimation printer, an Agfa Jeti Tauro H3300 UV printer and a Zünd G3 flatbed cutter.
While before Covid the company's other brand, Northern Flags, represented a substantial portion of the business, post-pandemic FaberExposize has been bringing in the vast majority - around 80% - of business.
"[Our expansion into last-minute business] was kind of the drive for the investment that we've done as we came out of Covid into this year.
"It's paid off, particularly as we've got a lot [of business] in retail and exhibitions, the advantage of the Tauro on the UV side is it's very fast on things like window clings, and things like that."
The firm has managed to capture a wide spectrum of work from its upgraded capacity, and now even prints for theatre stages.
Clasper-Cotte added: "We've really broadened our client base, which has been really useful.
"Obviously, we started off as Northern Flags, but we've kind of morphed into FaberExposize."
The change has been successful for the firm, said Clasper-Cotte, enough to increase the number of staff by 40% from pre-Covid operations.
The company now has 50 staff across both the Northern Flags and FaberExposize brands.
