The company finished installing the machine at its Marrickville headquarters early last month.

Owner Rob Farrell told ProPrint it had become essential for the company to have a serious digital capability as “the industry is changing dramatically from offset to digital”.

“We’re primarily an offset company. We did have a small HP digital press, but it was becoming too costly and too slow to run. Even the consumables were eating away at our costs, so we looked at upgrading,” he said.

Farrell decided to go with the C720 (pictured), a Ricoh OEM device, because of the “versatility” of the machine, as well as the low purchase and running costs.

He estimated that about 70% of the work done on the Pro C720 will be in colour, including A4 magazines and brochures, DL brochures, and business cards.

“We’re trying to grow our digital market. We certainly wouldn’t have been in the market before because of the speed of the old HP. So this opens up new markets for us on the digital side,” he said.

“A lot of our current customers and the new ones I’m going to try and market to will want short run printing with quick turnarounds.”

Farrell added that the HP would be retained as a back-up device, primarily being used for smaller jobs such as job ticketing.

Farrell Printers is a family business founded in 1927 by Rob’s grandfather, William Farrell. It employs five full-time staff and also operates a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster 52.

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