The machine, which cost between £350,000 and £400,000, will be installed at KEP’s Tamworth, Staffordshire premises in around three weeks’ time, joining a roster of other kit and replacing an eight-year-old Indigo.
The investment takes total 2017 spending up to around the £700,000 mark, following a £300,000 spend last month on a high-speed Lamina Blackline laminator.
KEP managing director Mark Plowman anticipates he will be able to take on far more high-end jobs following the investment and focused on the six-colour press configuration and primer ink enablement as plus points.
Plowman said: "From our perspective it’s got more features than the existing machine we’ve got. It’s got the benefit of special effects, thicker substrates, white ink and obviously this particular one has six-colour configuration.
“As a company KEP has quite a range of products so for instance we go from business cards right the way through to packaging and high-end brochure work. That’s why we wanted a thicker substrate off it as well, so we can prototype some packaging. Not a lot of people know the diversity of our range.”
KEP’s Indigo has been configured with Enhanced Productivity Mode, which can print up to 160 A4ppm (two-up). It takes coated and uncoated stocks weighing between 60gsm and 350gsm, taking sheet sizes up to 330x480mm.
Special effect colours within the six-colour configuration are interchangeable and include digital matte, fluorescent pink, invisible red and light CMYK colours plus white.
Plowman added: “One of the benefits we found that we will have with the Indigo is it prints with a rosetta pattern, so now when we’re doing high-end brochure work for instance the internals can be litho-printed but the externals need to be matched. Anyone who saw the externals under a magnifying glass would think it’s a litho print.
“Canvas, lenticular, you name it, it’s stuff that we’ve never been able to get involved in but with the primer kit, it allows us.”
KEP will continue to invest towards the end of this year and is also in the process of a rebrand that is being overseen by newly appointed marketing manager Nicole Plowman, Mark Plowman’s daughter-in-law.
Aside from the Indigo, it runs a roster of kit that includes four Roland machines, an HP flatbed and an Agfa wide-format machine. Plowman is looking to boost its £15m turnover figure by the end of this year.
