The Sudbury, Suffolk-based business has quadrupled in size over the past four years to become a £500,000-turnover, five-staff enterprise.
The Ricoh device, which was bought from Hertfordshire-based reseller Smart Print, will be installed at the firm's 325sqm premises next week.
A Duplo digital DBM350 booklet system was installed earlier this month and followed a Duplo DC645i multifinisher and an Ideal 7260 guillotine, both of which were installed late last year.
“We’ve grown very quickly over the past four or five years and we needed to add to our digital presses,” said managing director Ed Oakes.
The Ricoh Pro C7100 prints on stock up to 360gsm with a top resolution of 1,200x4,800dpi, and can also handle textured grades. Print speed is up to 90ppm.
Maximum print format is SRA3 and the device can also produce banners up to 700mm in length. It has a fifth colour station for applying white, or a spot or flood clear gloss finish.
“We also looked at the Xerox Versant 2100 but the C7100 offers us some things we can’t do at the moment, such as the extended sheet size which will enable us to do A4 four-page landscapes and six-page portraits," said Oakes.
“The white ink and clear ink also open up some new avenues for us on both end-user sales and possibly trade sales as well.”
The DBM350 is capable of producing up to 2,500 booklets per hour.
“We only have to top and tail SRA3 sheets before stitching, and with fully automated programming we have reduced the amount of time to produce booklets substantially. When a new programme is created it is saved for fast set-up on repeat orders,” said Oakes.
According to Oakes, the DC645i slitter-cutter-creaser has enabled the company to significantly increase its productivity.
“It frees up user time because you can set it up to run and it’s basically pretty much automated, which gives the finishers time to then work on other projects,” said Oakes.
“We’ve seen a 50% increase in workload that we can put through. It also frees up our guillotine, meaning that other jobs are then able to go through more quickly.”
The company has recently completed an extension to its premises, which has enabled it to house the new equipment. The total investment cost of the new machinery and extension came to around £250,000.
Spingold Design & Print also operates three Xerox digital devices; a D110, a 700 and a Color J75, as well as an Epson 9900 and HP Latex printer on its wide-format side.
It designs and prints business cards, brochures, posters, signage and exhibition graphics, as well as fine art, for a wide spectrum of customers.
