Longbeach Printing has installed a slew of new kit as it switches from offset to a full digital and wide format operation to secure its future.
Owner Josh De Groot says it has been through a 12-month business realignment that was difficult, but has halved operating costs and cut staff numbers from 30 to 16, and is already starting to pay for itself.
The southeast Melbourne company has swapped two ageing offset presses for an HP Indigo 7800 in search of better margins and a new beginning for the family business.
[Related: Switching to digital]
Owner Josh De Groot says between the 7800 and a Fuji Xerox Color 700 Press, Longbeach has converted 80 per cent of its offset work to digital and is attracting new types of jobs.
“We are doing 25-50 jobs a day on the Indigo now, many of which were not viable on offset, and the margin is far better,” he says.
The company has also invested heavily the wide format, installing the world’s first Agfa Anapurna M2540i flatbed, and next month will bring in the first Jeti Mira hybrid printer in Australasia.
Both Agfa units were bought at PrintEx while the 7800 came from Indigo reseller Currie before the show.
Together with an Agfa Anapurna M2050 installed last year, the new gear allows Longbeach to expand its product range beyond A4-A1 offset printed posters to almost any wide format job, including printing on corflute, timber, and other specialist materials.
“Wide format brings a whole new client base to the business and the margins are far better than offset. It is a growth market and a big part of our future,” De Groot says.
Longbeach also built a whole A3 bindery department from scratch so it can do all its finishing in-house.
“It makes for small to medium printers to get out of offset and go full digital, there is just no money in offset anymore,” says De Groot.
“We have invested a lot in new machinery, but even as a business with no debt the margins were too skinny on offset so we made this big change to secure our future.”
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