As the sign industry has swapped paintbrushes for digital engines it has found that its horizons reach further than ever into new areas for growth.

Prominent Melbourne sign company Landells Signs has redefined its business model in the past few years with digital technology, and can now supply signs and POS materials more efficiently than ever to its blue chip client base nationwide.

To meet deadlines and growing client demand, it has invested in two EFI VUTEk GS3250LX Pro LED UV-curing grand-format printers. These have been installed in Landells’ Melbourne headquarters by Spicers, replacing one printer which had served well but no longer managed to supply the volume of work Landells enjoys.

A long history of signs

The company can look back on 110 years in business, and today offers a range of services that stretches far beyond signs to site audits and surveys, permit procurement, design engineering, sign manufacturing and installation.

Owner and managing director Shane Woodman bought the company six years ago from his father. In that six years Woodman has taken aboard digital technology with a passion and expanded interstate to drive the company forward. He has 25 years’ experience in the sign industry and backs that up as a registered builder — he is a member of the Master Builders Association of Australia. His experience covers project management, business analysis, logistics and supply chain management.

“The business was started in 1903 by the Landells,” he says. “My father Glen bought the company in 1973, and ran the business until six years ago, when I bought it from him. In its early days the business was located in Melbourne’s CBD, and when it grew it moved out to the North Melbourne district, until about six years ago when we moved to West Sunshine.”

Its client list includes some of the country’s major retail and grocery names, along with office stationery. Many of them need frequent sign and point-of-sale material supplied to locations right around the country, which poses logistical challenges for Landells.

“Our clientele are Australia-wide. They often change their signs and point-of-sale material on a weekly basis, so we have to send new material nationwide,” says Woodman. “Freight often hurts our cost base, so we need to ensure all the figures work and we have reliable people on board for that.”

Shamila Shamil, Landells’ finance manager, points out, “For the past six years we’ve achieved an average 10% growth annually. We found we had some difficulties and frustration in getting installers to do all the work on our behalf in Sydney, so we bought a small company there and have grown that into our own manufacturing and installation business.”

Two is better than one

The installation of two of EFI’s VUTEk GS3250LX Pro printers has changed the way Landells Signs tackles production challenges. Instead of having one large machine for all production, the two VUTEks enable the company to take on different job types at once.

“We were using a machine from another brand but the growth of the business dictated that we move on. The VUTEks offered a two-for-one solution in which we had back-up if one machine had a problem, and also we could do separate jobs at the same time,” says Woodman.

“We did our research and looked at all the machines available to us. We saw them at the exhibition in Las Vegas earlier this year and then EFI offered to take us to their manufacturing headquarters in Meredith, near Boston, US. We had a complete tour of the facilities there, how they work, saw all their servicing capabilities, and we were very impressed with their professionalism.”

The VUTEk GS3250LX machines use cool-cure LED technology, and can deliver print resolutions up to 1,000dpi for high definition point-of-sale graphics.

Lance Atwell, Landells’ operations manager, says, “There is a combination of things that persuaded us to go with EFI. The back-up service was very important to us, because we’d had poor service with other machines previously. We need to have quick back-up here for our tight deadlines. Parts were also readily available, and the print quality was probably twice as good as our other machines.

“The speed of the machines was also important to us. A lot of our clients rely on a quick turnaround time – we often only get 24 hours to deliver a job. So the three big-ticket items for us were the service, the speed and the quality.”

The choice of LED-cured machines was quite deliberate, says Atwell.

“We looked at LED from the perspective that LED will be the future for these machines. There’s no point buying something with the old lamps when in a year’s time all the machines will be using LED lamps, so we thought we’d get in early.”

Simon Trytell, inkjet sales development manager at EFI Australia, says, “From our perspective, it’s great to have two machines at the one customer site, producing at the same time. It was important for Shane to have the productivity and reliability to handle the volume of work he needed to get done.

“The other important thing for him was to have the flexibility to do different jobs at the same time. So instead of having all his eggs in one basket with one big machine, by having two machines with the same capacity or more, he can do a rigid job and a roll-to-roll job at the same time. This way he can meet customer demands as they come in. For EFI, it’s fantastic to have a customer who has the production flexibility and capability to do what he wants.”

Bringing it all in-house

The extra capacity from the two VUTEk GS3250LXs solved another problem for Landells. When workloads ballooned, the company regularly had to outsource it to other suppliers, but now all work is done in-house.

“We were previously outsourcing up to 70% of our work to keep up with the volume of it, but the two VUTEks have enabled us to bring it all back in-house,” says Woodman. “It’s saving us a lot of money, and it eliminates a lot of travel because the company we were using was on the other side of town, so we can turn jobs around much more quickly. It also cuts back on problems in jobs, and gives us complete control over all our work. The sub-contractors we used were fine, but it was more about being able to dictate our own terms instead of having to rely on other people.”

The two machines were installed in August, in a special-purpose room complete with climate control and extra lighting.

The company decommissioned its old machine and was in full production with the VUTEks within two weeks.

“It was a steep learning curve from our old machine, but it was straightforward,” says Woodman. “It was mainly about computer knowledge. Our operators are very impressed with them. We’re currently training another fellow who’s new to the industry.”

Atwell adds that the installation by Spicers was a streamlined operation.

“Spicers were really good to us, and have been very helpful in getting up and into production.”

“Landells set the bar high when they began searching for a new printer for their expanding business,” says Jason Hay, national sales manager for signs & display hardware at Spicers. “After seeing the new EFI VUTEk HS100 in full production at the ISA exhibition in Las Vegas, they began to seriously evaluate the EFI VUTEk grand-format range. When they approached Spicers, we carried out a full analysis of their current workflow, and recommended they build in some redundancy. Two EFI VUTEk GS3250LX Pro printers offered an ideal solution. Shane Woodman’s visit to the EFI factory at Meredith, in the US, convinced him that it was a choice that would meet all of Landells’ key purchasing criteria – support, reliability, value for money and the ability to bring everything in-house.”

All that’s fit to print

The cool-curing technology of the VUTEk GS3250LX machines provides Landells with opportunities to try new substrates for new effects and greater product differentiation. That also opens new markets for business.

“We did some test samples in Meredith with files and substrates that our previous machine had struggled with, and they all worked well, so these VUTEks have broadened the range of substrate materials we can use,” says Atwell.

“Beforehand, we could only print on certain substrates, which might have cut us out of jobs,” adds Woodman, “but now we can print on cheaper substrates to get jobs, and on different media to get us into new markets. Point-of-sale is a good area for us now.

“The signage industry is going digital. Years ago it was just a paintbrush. You’ve got to be across the technology now in all parts of the sign industry for point-of-sale, as well as large corporate signs. Our factory is now set up for all the different demands of our clients.

“If you’d asked me two years ago when we bought our previous machine, I’d have said one machine was enough to do the job, but the VUTEks have opened new doors for us, and given us paths to new business.”

Fast facts: EFI VUTEk GS3250LX Pro

• LED cool-curing technology lowers total cost of ownership

• Eight-colour plus white UV printing, switchable to Fast-5 for high productivity

• Greyscale technology delivers higher image quality at production speeds with better ink utilisation, lowering cost per print

• Prints quality output up to 223sqm/hour

• White printing capability allows printing white in six variations: overprint, underprint, spot, underspot, fill and overspot

• Handles flexible or rigid substrates up to 3.2 metres and up to 5.08cm thick

• Changeover to print on flexible from rigid substrates in less than one minute

• Consistent colour output and simple operation reduces waste with LED cool-curing

Comment below to have your say on this story.

If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.  

Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter