Documents on Call owner Kevin Mack said the Melbourne firm would be able to bring short-run finishing in-house once it had mastered the Therm-o-Type Zip-TS2L, which was supplied by Graph-Pak.
"I'll be able to do short-run small embossing and I can tell you that has struck a chord with my clients," he told ProPrint.
"If you want short-run quick embossing of a logo or something like that, we have to outsource that, and with digital, your runs are small, so all your revenue goes in couriers and outsourcing costs."
The Zip-TS2L creases, perforates, slits, diecuts, blind embosses, holepunches and square holepunches, and can handle four different processes simultaneously.
Mack said it was perfect for fiddly, repetitive jobs that demand precision. "And if you can do those, you have more chance of winning more of the bread-and-butter work," he added.
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"The problem with all of us now is that high-quality four-colour printing has become standard, so the first discussion you have is price. So if you say to someone, 'why don't I add embossing or shapecutting or diecutting?', you've got a different string to your bow."
Documents on Call became the second Australia printer to install the Zip-TS2L when it took delivery of the $115,000 machine in October. The 11-staff firm was just beaten to the punch by Daroji Print Finishing, which received its Therm-o-Type earlier that month.
Daroji co-owner Bill Bassingthwaighte said the Brisbane trade finisher could now "do two tasks in the same time it took to do one".
"It's suited to shorter-run work because of the lesser set-up both in time and materials… It's not fast, but in the context of what it does, it's very efficient," he told ProPrint.
"Quite a lot of the work we do flows on to further machines. It does preparation work for other finishing. It might combine two or three steps. It sits in our workflow rather than being a separate product line."
Bassingthwaighte said the 21-staff firm was counting on the Therm-o-Type to boost its digital business from its current level of about 10% of turnover.
Graph-Pak will be demonstrating the machine at PacPrint.
[Related: More news about installations]
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