The Vutek, bought second-hand through Inkjet Monkey, arrived on 26 September, and will replace the firm’s Vutek QS 3200 Pro, which is now 16 years old.
“There’s never a good time to switch off your old printer and put a new one in, but for me the advantages are such that it’s worth the short-term pain,” co-managing director John Hodson told Printweek.
“The QS 3200 Pro is still working and doing a great job, but the opportunity came up, and the new machine is a lot bigger, a lot faster. The only issue is that it has to go upstairs on our mezzanine floor, which isn’t ideal for such a large printer. So we’ve got a structural engineer in – we’re hoping it will be up and running either next week or the week after.”
Once running, GH Display will see an enormous difference to its production. The QS 3200 Pro is capable of printing around 18sqm/hr, and would run ten hours a day, five days a week to keep up with demand.
The new machine has a theoretical top speed of 432sqm/hr, with GH Display likely to print at around 150sqm/hr in higher quality mode – more than eight times faster than the old machine.
“Effectively, we should be able to do in one hour what our old machine was doing in a day,” Hodson said.
“It’s more energy efficient, too, so there’s plenty of sustainable credentials there. It’s in absolutely impeccable condition, almost showroom, as well. It’s obviously been very well looked-after by the previous company.”
GH Display’s new machine has given it significant growth potential over the next few years – but it has not been standing still to this point.
Growing around 30% year-on-year, even through the pandemic, since ownership was taken on by Jenny and John Hodson from his father in 2013, the firm has swelled from a team of three to 25.
“It was a big step for us five years ago to [to buy the QS 3200 Pro] but now this step doesn’t seem out-of-this-world. It just seems the right thing to do to continue our growth,” Hodson said.
“The QS seemed like a massive upgrade, as it was the first time we printed at three metres wide. Now, we’ve put the rocket boosters on.”
Now turning over £3m, the company is projected to reach £3.8m next year.
