Harrisons Signs, which also runs a Vutek PressVu 200/600 2m-wide flatbed UV printer, upgraded its original Mimaki JV3 to a 1.3m-wide JV33 in 2011 and has now installed the 1.6m-wide JV400 as an additional machine.

Peter Robinson, sales account manager at Harrisons Signs, said: "The benefit of it being UV is that it takes out some of your post-print processes - it's touch-dry the instant it comes off the printer and the toughness of the inks means you don't need to laminate."

This has led to an efficiency gain of around 25% and is expected to result in a much faster ROI on the JV400 than the JV33 - in about two years rather than four, according to Robinson, who added that the firm could start looking for another additional printer next year.

"A 30m print job might previously have taken as long as four-and-a-half hours to output; the new SUV reduces this to around three to three-and-a-half hours, which is a significant time saving," added Robinson.

Harrisons was originally considering investing in a latex printer; however, due to the higher power consumption and temperature (which affects the range of substrates that can be used) it opted for another solvent printer instead.

Robinson said: "We didn't really want a portfolio of materials purely for latex and a portfolio of materials purely for solvent, whereas the SUV you don't need to worry about that; it prints on everything that we currently use to a quality standard."