The Barnsley-based firm purchased a Ricoh Pro C901 digital colour press last November and said it has since benefited from cost savings and the ability to produce prototypes for its R&D work.
“We decided to bring it in-house because of control. We were sometimes outsourcing our work to two or three different suppliers and we were finding it difficult to collate all of the information that we needed for each job quickly,” said managing director Henry Otulakowski.
“This has sped up the process, which has helped us enormously. It’s had a huge impact as it’s meant that we no longer have to outsource any digital print at all. It’s made the whole business much more efficient and made us feel a lot more in control.”
The firm still outsources large-format litho and large-format digital jobs, which make up around 20% of its total workload. However, it is due to invest in a B2 five-colour press later in the year to bring the remainder of its printing in-house.
With the Ricoh Pro C901, HOA is now able to cost effectively produce packaging prototypes and samples in-house for its R&D work, which it said had encouraged customers to be more creative at the design stage.
“It’s no longer an artist’s impression. We can produce something that clients can pick up that is very tangible and tactile. We can very quickly put out a whole range of different concepts,” said Otulakowski.
As its first production press, the firm looked at a number of options when considering the investment. It chose the Ricoh press after previous experience of using suppliers with larger Ricoh equipment and being impressed by the the quality and turnaround of the work.
HOA has a web-to-print service that enables its customers to update their own artwork online. These files are then sent directly to the Ricoh press, meaning that these jobs can be printed and ready for dispatch, sometimes within half an hour of the changes being made.
“The whole web-to-print process is very fast now. When we used to outsource the service it was that much slower because it depended on the availability of machines,” said Otulakowski.
The firm took on two new press operators to run the equipment as well as an apprentice. It now has 13 staff and a turnover of around £1.5m.
“We’re building up our print room. We’ve now got a full suite of finishing equipment, which we got immediately when we got the press. We bought a new guillotine, creaser-folder, collator, a drill and stitching so we can do it all on site now,” said Otulakowski.
The full investment cost around £130,000 with the Ricoh Pro C901 costing £98,000.
