When screen printing company Fosco Signs was founded back in 1936, its maiden workforce would have struggled even in their most implausible flights of imagination to foresee the technological advances that would transform the business over the next century.

Little of the old company remains today, even the name has changed – to Fosco Hayes Hurdley. The screen printing facilities hung on until 2006, when current managing director David Nicholas took over from his father. He reviewed the business, its clients and where he thought the market was headed and took the decision to take the company digital-only.
Rather than lament the changes, however, Fosco says its ability to adapt and survive is something to celebrate and certainly the company has shown itself to be brave in the kit purchasing department.

For example, the Birmingham printer’s most recent investment, in June, was a second HP Scitex FB7500 flatbed digital press. Noticing that the trend for short runs and shorter turnarounds, which led it to buy its first FB7500 in March 2010, had become a full-blown market, the company realised that it needed to boost capacity in this area. 

"The short-term demand was getting squeezed so much that we were filling the first FB7500 to the point where, because we were getting into 23- and 24-hour days; we had nowhere else to go other than investing in another machine," says production director Jason Farr. "Regardless of how busy or quiet you are generally, if the machine’s already full with a short-turnaround job you can’t put another one off for a week, you’ve got to find a space for it. Obviously you don’t want to turn work down, but we were having to before the second FB7500 was installed."

Output claims
Speed is obviously crucial for short-run work and Farr says the six-colour FB7500 certainly delivers. So far, it has hit all the speeds it claims to achieve, though he says it does suffer the odd hiccup when printing on certain particularly difficult substrates.

Crucially, this high speed does not mean quality is compromised, reports Farr. "We do have a Vutek QS3200, which can deliver equally well on the quality front," he says, "but it’s slower. The FB7500 delivers consistent quality and speed, provided of course that our pressminders make sure the necessary maintenance work is carried out every morning."

Key to this speed and quality, Farr says, are the upgrades available for the press. This, he reports, was the key feature that attracted his managing director when he trialled the press in Barcelona, opting for it over an Inca S20 due to being impressed by the performance of the two HP Scitex XL1500s the company was already running, along with HP’s service support.

The first press, located at Fosco’s newly purchased Birmingham premises, has been upgraded twice, benefiting from new features such as a Pop 48 high-quality production model, a flattening flexible media vacuum, and a Printcare software system that combines several different support packages into one, so that the system is now semi-automatic. "The first FB7500 has been updated twice so far and it’s like having a new press each time," says Farr, explaining that all of the upgrades came as standard on the second machine. "It’s a big selling feature for HP. They’ve added better quality settings within the range, so the quality that comes off on the really high settings is great."

Feed ability
The FB7500’s automatic loading system has also revolutionised the factory’s efficiency, says Farr. Although having the facility to feed a sheet in while the press is printing another job is seen by many in the industry as a standard feature, the FB7500 is the first press Fosco has installed with this capability. It has proved so useful that the company is relocating its first press to utilise this feature. It is planning to move its first machine so it can sit side by side with the second in their new premises where both presses can be run by just one operator. "This is a new feature for us as we’ve only had the Vutek before," says Farr. "Certainly in comparison to the machines that we have here it cuts feed in time by up to 75%, as before you’d have to load each sheet manually one by one."

Fosco has a further tip for anyone with similar plans to acquire more than one FB7500. No special space was prepared for the first press, but the company quickly realised that it should sink the delivery bed into the floor for the second. This was so that, instead of needing a forklift truck to lift the pallet from the delivery bed, a pallet truck could be wheeled to it at floor level where the pallets are dragged across. As a result of this discovery, Fosco has already prepared a specially lowered floor next to its newest FB7500 ready for when the older press is moved across.

Fosco is not the only firm to have experienced a learning curve since the installation of its first FB7500. Although all niggles have been rectified now, the first machine did have some teething problems, Farr reports. "In the early days of the very first machine, there were a few frustrations," he says, "but we had no doubt that HP could get it right and they did. That shows on the second machine. They obviously learned a lot from the earlier models."

Rising media was one of the problems with the first FB7500 – and indeed for other printers with the same press – with the speed with which the paper was taken causing it to rise up and hit certain sensors. This was rectified very quickly with a new, more sophisticated and less sensitive rising media detector upgrade that now comes as standard on new machines.

Software tweaks
Software problems were also an issue in the first few weeks, as were the electrics of the press’s UV cabinet, which initially tripped two or three times an hour. "There was a bath valve error that kept coming up with the software detecting that one was out when it wasn’t," says Farr. "The initial delay was quite a few weeks as, with a couple of different problems, we kept having to call HP’s engineers back."

But the level of service provided by HP has more than made up for these initial problems, says Farr. "Whenever we did put the call in they always came very promptly," he says. "It was within a few hours if they could or by the next day. We’ve been very impressed with the overall level of service provided by HP and the way they’ve ironed out any problems. The UV cabinet does occasionally still trip out, but only every couple of weeks. And the training HP provided was spot on."
HP says teething troubles can be an inevitable occurrence with new machines, but that, in the case of Fosco, all problems were fully resolved through their ongoing support services programme.

For Fosco, the ultimate proof that the HP FB7500 has delivered on what it promised to do is its annual turnover figures. Thanks to their two latest investments, a TurboJet in March and the second FB 7500, the company expects to achieve a £3.2m turnover this year, up from £2.5m last year and £1.7m in 2009. "We’ve enjoyed a good steady growth because of those machines," says Farr. "We’d definitely invest in another FB7500, capital and space allowing."

So presumably Fosco would recommend the HP FB7500 to other printers? "Yes, we’d definitely recommend the press to printers wanting to boost their production," Farr says, "except if they were our competitors of course..."

SPECIFICATIONS
Speed Up to 500sqm/hr or 95 sheets/hr
Resolution Native up to 500dpi  
Handling Sheet-to-sheet 3/4-automatic loading and unloading
Types Foam PVC, PVC sheets, foamboard, corrugated cardboard, displayboard/cardstock, compressed cardboard, polystyrene, SAV, paper, synthetic paper, corrugated polypropylene and others
Size Rigid and flexible sheets up to 1,650x3,200mm
Thickness Up to 25mm
Ink types UV-curable pigmented inks
Printheads 312 total (52 per colour)
Software GrandRip+ by Caldera or Production House by Onyx
Price £700,000
Contact HP 08452 704000 www.hp.com

COMPANY PROFILE
Set up in 1936 as a screen printing business providing posters and point-of-sale solutions, Fosco Hayes Hurdley is one of the UK’s longest established printers specialising in digital large-format. Located in Birmingham, Fosco caters for the advertising, design and construction industries, printing a range of wide-format solutions such as vinyl banners, billboards, fleet and vehicle graphics, building wraps, event and trade show displays, wall murals, poster printing and digital décor.

Why I bought it…
Fosco installed its first machine in March 2010 in response to increased demand for shorter turnarounds. With 24-hour days becoming the norm, the company realised there was ample short-turnaround demand for another press.

How it has performed…
Despite some "teething problems" with the first FB7500, production director at Fosco’s Jason Farr says the company is now very pleased with their investment, and that "there’s not a lot the machine can’t actually do".