The commercial printer looked at every manufacturer's B2 offerings with coaters in the search for a replacement for one of its two Roland presses.

"It came down to two machines, and we'd built up a good feeling about Sakurai," said Clarkeprint managing director Robert Dalby. "We liked their customer focus and the engineering of the press, it was quite simplistic in some ways."

Dalby says the Birmingham-based firm made the 500,000 press investment to improve productivity, reliability and add value for customers.

The 3.5m-turnover commercial printer has also "verbally agreed" to take another four-colour B2 two-over-two with coater version of the OL 75SD, "depending on the success of the new press". This will round off 1m-plus investment in the past 12 months.

"We're done now, we've got a new MIS and CTP, we're full," said Dalby.

The actual press that will be delivered to Clarkeprint was the star of the show at Sakurai's openhouse and coating forum last week.

The five-colour 15,000sph OL 75SDC, which was shown alongside a four-colour OL 66SIC created quite a stir. It boasts double sized impression cylinders and seven-o'clock alignment. "We've got several good leads, and we're following them up fairly quickly while we've still got the press," said Sakurai UK operations director Mark Jennings. "We're pulling it apart in December so that we can deliver it at Christmas."

The event, which showcased B2 and SRA2 coating presses was attended by around 25 customers and Sakurai managing director Ryuta Sakurai.

Story by Darryl Danielli