The £250,000 install, which joins three Epson Stylus Pro 9700s and three Du Pont Largo 4406s, was made as part of the firm’s latest round of investments in quick turnaround output. It also included a £110,000 Autobond laminator spend and increasing its Live Chat sales team from one to five staff.
The rationale behind adding another Xerox machine was to add extra capacity and insulate the company further from potential downtime, said co-founder Aron Priest. "With any digital machine you have a certain amount of downtime so to maintain uptime you have to install another machine," he said.
"And with three printers we can use one for board, one for paper and one for more bespoke jobs; the machines tend to like that," added Priest.
Another iGen was chosen because Priest and co-founder Andy Smith felt they were "well looked after" by Xerox. This vendor was originally chosen due to Solopress favouring its easy-to-use, green button technology.
Further rapid expansion is in the pipeline for Solopress, Priest said. The company has taken on 40 extra staff since Christmas, and is looking to boost employee numbers from 140 to 155 by September. The company is aiming for a £12 million turnover this year.
"At the end of this journey we aim to have six or seven iGens, if growth continues at this rate," said Priest. "The digital market is really going from strength to strength."
