The company, which offers screen, litho, digital, wide-format and finishing services, said it is on course to reach a projected target of £3m turnover for 2016, an increase of £750,000 on 2015’s turnover, after a record-breaking first quarter.

Wallace Print managing director Gary Wallace put the increase down to two main factors, a re-jig of the current staffing model and the purchase of a new Fujifilm Acuity Advance HD 3545 flatbed, installed in early February.

Wallace said: “We have been incredibly successful in our first operating quarter. There are two reasons for this. The flatbed is the first reason, it changed the workout unbelievably and has allowed us to become adept within our processes and at feeding our machines."

“We still had to attract the work so the second reason is I changed the sales team around. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly but as a team, everyone has stepped up to the mark and done what was expected of them, from sales to production."

The new flatbed prints directly onto a wide variety of rigid or flexible media. Its production speed is 40.2sqm/hr with a resolution of 1,440dpi or higher. It prints in CMYK plus white.

Wallace said it is this new white ink option that has been so useful in getting more work commissioned. He said: “I have a job going through at the moment doing 3,000 sheets onto clear material, so digitally printing. There is no way that at least 90% of SMEs could compete with this."

The printer has a max media size of 1.25x2.5m and a max print area of 1.26x2.51m. Wallace purchased it in a part-exchange for his previous Océ flatbed printer, along with £100,000 for the printer plus software and re-calibration. He now has three Fuji flatbeds.

Wallace Print has also taken on two new staff in its finishing department, one in March and one in April. It has expansion plans for the near future. Wallace says he will soon be launching an e-commerce business to feed the company and will be looking to purchase another new flatbed.

Wallace added: "What I always think is it's important not to think like a printer, but to think outside the box and create innovative opportunities."

Last November, Wallace Print bought a 2m-wide Wohlenberg guillotine and updated its premises in Rochester, Kent by adding new offices to the building.