Joining three Mimaki wide-format printers, the 1.6m Canon roll-to-roll runs at four to five times the speed of GMD’s existing UV printers combined, according to Justas Gadliauskas, founder and managing director at the firm.
Purchased from CMYUK with all optional extras, including input print side-in, double-sided printing, two-roll feeding and Canon’s FLXFinish+ matte, gloss or mixed finish module, the new printer was given two weeks for thorough testing and training before production started in February.
“My motto is do it well, or don’t do it at all,” Gadliauskas told Printweek.
“We decided that we needed to upgrade with a printer that’s more like a workhorse, so just before Christmas, we placed the order to up our production capacity. We’ve given the Canon a go, and we’re very happy.
“For the first two weeks, we set everything up, including the profiles, and got familiar with the machine, preparing all the different types of print options we could do with a full-spec model.”
GMD is a relatively new player to industrial print, having initially served as a graphics installation company – but Gadliauskas has family history in the trade, having spent much of his childhood at his father’s printing company, and clients frequently encouraged him to start production in-house, he said.
“All my clients knew my background, they knew my perfectionism. So [eventually] I just thought ‘It’s either now or never,’ and two and a half years ago we bought a few small, entry-level printers to start,” Gadliauskas said.
Taking a slow and steady approach, the company has since introduced printing to its portfolio successfully, with GMD now looking to replace some of its Mimakis, and potentially bring in another Canon.
Taking up his father’s trade was an interesting experience, Gadliauskas said.
“He said not to go into print – that it’s hard. There’s a lot of engineering involved on the printing side, on the production side – but I knew it would be hard, and I knew I was not the sort of person to give up. I have good technical knowledge myself, so I decided to go for it.”
GDM now employs seven in its production team, with a nine-strong team on installations, and following an expansion from a 50sqm unit to a 420sqm unit in Deptford last year, doubled its turnover from around £900,000 to around £1.8m.
Gadliauskas added: “I’m very happy because I have managed to put together a really strong, professional team. We all learn from each other and improve all the time.”
