The Ipswich-based printer has seen its digital print revenue go from around 3% of turnover four years ago to 20% in 2014 on the back of a 40% surge since it installed its first Kodak NexPress in November 2013.
Healeys Print Group managing director Philip Dodd said: "We had had a Ricoh 901 for some time and then we installed a refurbished NexPress 2500 just over a year ago, since when our digital volume has grown 40%.
"Digital now represents 20% of the business, which grew 10% as a whole last year to nearly £3.5m. We're targeting £4.5m in the next three years of which a third will be digital."
To drive this growth the company has invested £350,000 in a raft of new digital print and finishing equipment, including a second Nexpress – an SX3900 that is due to be installed in early March and will replace its old 2500.
Healeys will also replace its current Ricoh C901 with the new Ricoh C7100. Both new digital presses are five-colour machines, with the NexPress capable of printing red, green or blue to better match Pantone colours and the Ricoh capable of printing a white ink or spot or flood varnish with its fifth unit.
The Ricoh is due to arrive in February alongside a Eurofold creaser-folder and 645 cutter-creaser from Duplo. "Up until now we were putting our digital finishing through our bindery but as digital has been growing its started to clutter things up," said Dodd.
"We've added digital finishing and completely refurbished our digital print department. If anybody had told me I'd be doing that within a year of installing our first NexPress I'd have said they were crazy, but we have and I do believe we can double our digital revenue again in the next three years."
In addition to being more than 50% faster on the run than its old NexPress, Healeys' new SX3900 will be the first in the UK to be equipped with the 1,000mm long sheet feeder.
"We've started to see an increase in the volume of longer run personalised jobs we do – the longest of which has been 90,000 although the average run length tends to be much shorter," said Dodd.
"The SX3900 is the fastest [sheetfed] press Kodak produces and it is also a very robust machine, I think due to Heidelberg's original involvement in the NexPress. The long sheet feeder is something customers have been asking us for and its something different that can make it much easier to start a conversation with potential clients."
Healeys has also installed Catfish web-to-print software from Infigo and Dodd said that front-end workflow automation was another area he was "very interested in". "With digital you can't have the burden of administration both in customer service and pre-press – it's just not sustainable," he added.
"We run Heidelberg's workflow and went live with the Optimus Dash MIS last year and we will be looking with Kodak at how we can get increase automation through better workflow integration."
