The colour management and large-format digital supplier will run the newly acquired company as a separate business, 'DES Graffica', following the deal three months ago.

Graffica co-founder Neil Southerington, who will continue to run the business, called it "a marriage of convenience".

Southerington said he had been forced to rethink Graffica's future after his business partner, Steve Golding, passed away last year.

"Being partners, everything – the bank, the line of credit to buy in machines – suddenly came to a grinding halt because the bank wanted to renegotiate."

Most of Graffica's agencies have moved across in the deal, including the SBL range of diecutters, which accounted for around $2 million of sales last year, said Southerington.

A big focus is Autobox, a system for economically producing bespoke cartonboard and corrugated cartons at low run lengths.

[Feature: DES at PacPrint]

Currently, buyers that want low volumes of custom cartons are either forced to select from pre-existing formats or buy huge volumes of bespoke boxes to achieve the right economies of scale.

Southerington said the easy-to-use system "strips out several processes", such as producing a diecutting form, diecutting the box, producing a set of plates and offset printing.

According to the UK-based manufacturer, "With Autobox Quick Set technology, the machine automatically changes from one style and size of box to another in seconds, [requiring] no tools to remove and set.

"All the operator needs to do is tell the machine what box is required and it sets itself. Capable of running up to 1,200 boxes an hour, the Autobox Hipak and HiCut typically runs a job in less time than it takes to set a printer-slotter."

DES sales director Russell Cavenagh told ProPrint: "We see the mass customisation market as an emerging market."

The Autobox will be on display at its PacPrint stand, he added.

"The theme of the whole show for us is stand out from the crowd and don’t keep doing what your doing.

"There are printers cutting each others' throats every day; you need to look at higher-margin products. There are all these other products that printers could be selling that they are not thinking about," said Cavenagh.

"The Autobox fits into the just-in-time production environment – people want to order less and get a timely delivery, not order six months' worth at a time."

[Related: More M&A news]

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