The imagePress C10000VP, Canon’s first 100ppm colour cut-sheet digital print engine, was launched in September and will enable the company to print six pages of A4 at once at a speed that is twice as fast as the three-year-old imagePress C6010 it is replacing.
Kingsley bosses were also keen on the Canon’s ability to print on thicker materials and its print quality. It can print in CMYK at full rated speed on uncoated stock from 60-350gsm, and on coated grades from 70-350gsm.
It handles a maximum sheet size of 330x762mm and also handles specialist media, such as synthetics. The resolution is 2,400dpi.
Sales director Bradley Vaughan said: “The quality of the new 1000 is far superior to the C6010; it’s much sharper. It’s better for greens and blues and the pastels as well. We would often get banding on pastels with our existing machine.”
He and his father, managing director John Vaughan, decided on the new Canon after getting a preview of the machine by visiting the manufacturer's Business Centre in Poing, Germany and did not consider alternative brands.
“We stay with Canon because we’ve got a good relationship with them,” Bradley Vaughan said.
In addition, the Egham, Surrey-based company last month replaced Duplo DBM500 and DBM500T modules in its stitching line with DBM600 and DBM600T machines, bringing the total investment this time around to around £150,000.
Vaughan added: “We had a Duplo stitching line but we really wanted to be able to stitch larger brochures. The new stitching line can stitch landscape as well as portrait brochures.
“We’ve got a good relationship with Duplo. We were happy with the line, it was just it could only stitch portrait. There’s no difference in the speed.”
He said increasing demand for landscape brochures from a range of commercial clients had led to the combined purchase.
“The investment opens up a new market for us, it offers our clients a greater diversity. I’m hoping for an increase of 10% sales on digital this year. We’ll be able to bring more work in-house as well.”
Kingsley Print & Design has been running for 35 years providing predominantly litho services. It added digital printing about five years ago and this now represents about 10% of its £2m-plus turnover.
The 23-staff company also runs a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75, bought in its 30th year, a Canon IPF8400 wide-format printer and finishing kit.
