Included in the swag of investments is a new EFI VUTEk h5 superwide format hybrid inkjet printer, an HP Indigo 6K Digital Press and an ABG Digicon Series 3 label finishing line.

Australian trade printer CMYKhub is going from strength to strength as the company beefs up its offerings in the local market. The business made a series of strategic investments last year with Currie Group, and with the machines now recently installed, is maintaining its leadership as one of the top printers in the market.

Included in the swag of investments is a new EFI VUTEk h5 superwide format hybrid inkjet printer, an HP Indigo 6K Digital Press with an ABG Digicon Series 3 label finishing line to complement. With the new EFI VUTEk h5, CMYKhub has expanded on its wide-format capabilities, and with the HP Indigo 6K Digital Press and the ABG Digicon Series 3 label converting line, has made its first foray into labels and packaging applications.

CMYKhub managing director Trent Nankervis said, “We’ve recently invested in additional equipment from Currie Group. One area of investment was wide format as we found that our machines were a few years old and speeds and quality of wide format machines had changed in that time.

“Within our business, we found good, steady growth in wide format in the last six months to 12 months – our work performance grew by 30 per cent. This meant that we needed much more capacity, so we bought the EFI VUTEk h5 to cater to it.

“The EFI VUTEk h5 is possibly one of the fastest wide-format machines in the market and our goal is to have more consistent quality and to be able to output a lot more work without a strain on staff. This printer delivered on all of those needs.”

According to Trent, the EFI printer, will see the company increase its productivity by about eight times. CMYKhub CEO Dayne Nankervis said the HP Indigo 6K Digital Press and the ABG Digicon Series 3 combination, along with its entry into the labels space, comes in response to surging customer demand.

“We’ve supported our customers previously by outsourcing to other label businesses or referring customers on, but this is our first foray in-house into labels. We are getting a lot of work coming through now, so it was time to have our own capability,” Dayne said.

“Our business is quite diverse. We’re very strong in digital printing and wide format but needed to diversify a little bit further so labels has become another significant part of the business. With these two machines, we’re adding product and service capability. So, the speed of the machines fit what we believe we need.

“Labels is a new department product line that we’re entering into, so that will start in Melbourne but it will be supplying nationwide to all our customers. It will follow our historical process whereby we will open up in other states thereafter and we would expect to have label machines in all of our states within the next few years.”

CMYKhub will be printing a variety of roll labels on the machine, with Dayne saying that the company will focus on the self-adhesive market.

“It’s going to be printing roll labels, such as self-adhesive labels, which caters to a low-run, low-quantity label market for the trade industry. We’ll be concentrated on a streamlined product range which is standard to our product model and will be constrained on fast turnaround and fast quoting,” he said.

“We believe we will offer the fastest turnaround time in the market with this press.”

A ROCK-SOLID PARTNERSHIP

Dayne mentioned that the company invested in the trio of kit as it has had a longstanding relationship with local supplier Currie Group. For example, the install of the HP Indigo 6K Digital Press marks the ninth HP Indigo that CMYKhub has purchased from Currie Group.

The list includes two HP Indigo 100K Digital Presses, two HP Indigo 7r Digital Presses and a HP Indigo 7800 Digital Press which are located across the country.

“The technology for Indigo is quite well-known in the industry. It’s a respected brand and sells itself. It’s a brand we already know how to operate,” Dayne said.

“It also has a very high-quality image and print that is well-known in the industry. So, entering this new market with a machine that is already widely accepted was important to us.”

The ease of training up staff on a common platform was another reason CMYKhub chose the machines.

Trent said reliability is critical to CMYKhub’s operation and its relationship with Currie Group was integral in each of the purchases.

“Uptime and serviceability are critical to us so Currie Group’s ability to keep these machines running is a big plus. We have an extensive relationship with Currie Group and in terms of the quality of the products, we already have belief in the systems,” he said.

“From a maintenance and relationship perspective, we’ve always had the comfort in Currie Group being able to service and maintain our machines quickly and efficiently because our priority has always been to get jobs to our customers as quickly as possible.”

Currie Group sign and display business unit manager Paul Whitehead said, “With the increasing higher demand in wideformat for faster turnaround times, it was critical that our service response time matched that which we currently offer on our existing HP Indigo fleet.

“This level of service is not typically seen in the wide format arena; however, given our experience in the short-run, higher demand markets that we typically service, Currie Group is able to cater for this need.”

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE MACHINES

The EFI VUTEk h5 is a 3.2m hybrid roll/flatbed LED inkjet printer platform that has a print resolution of up to 1200 dpi. It comes with eight colours plus white, with a dual CMYK mode option for productivity levels of up to 109 boards per hour and has an up to nine-layer print capability.

In addition, it has UltraDrop Technology 7pL grayscale printheads; EFI LED technology; 3/4 automated media loading and stacker systems; EFI Fiery proServer Premium digital front end with Fiery Command WorkStation, FAST RIP and enhanced colour management and screening features; as well as Cloud and diagnostics services.

“Being a true hybrid the EFI h5 will not only significantly increase the rigid output by means of continuous feeding and automatic pallet stacking, but will also allow the production of the full gamut of flexible applications with extremely short changeover times,” Whitehead said.

The HP Indigo 6K Digital Press is the market-leading narrow-web printing solution for digital labels and packaging production, delivering high productivity, wide versatility, and intelligent colour automation.

Any colour can be reached consistently through its unmatched versatility and media, inks and applications. The press’ combination of tools, support, technical capabilities and continuous improvements add up to an unmatched quality and performance.

The press prints efficiently at speeds of up to 30m/min in 4-colour mode, up 40m/min in enhanced productivity mode and up to 60m/min in 1- or 2-colour mode. Special inks available for use include ElectroInk Premium White for Sleeves, Spot or Custom colours, Silver, Fluorescent Pink, Green, Yellow and Orange, Fade Resistant inks, and Invisible Yellow and Red for security applications.

In addition, it allows printers to diversify their businesses and gain new revenue streams by producing a variety of labels or packaging applications such as pressure-sensitive labels to sleeves, IML, wrap-arounds, flexible packaging and folding cartons. Currie Group director – labels and packaging A/NZ Mark Daws said, “The HP Indigo 6K Digital Press offers endless opportunities for our customers to grow. Our flagship and most widely used digital label press in the A/NZ market, the HP Indigo 6K, allows our customers to tap into new markets with maximum production efficiencies which meet the ever-increasing time-to-market needs of brands.

“HP Indigo offers the widest range of ink portfolio of any other digital press, with a broad range of customisation and unique embellishments for higher value applications.”

As for the ABG Digicon Series 3 label finishing line, it is designed for any digital printing application and can be used roll-to-roll or roll-to-sheet.

Some of its key features include:

• Die plate loading and unloading

• Fast Track Die Cutting – the world’s fastest semi-rotary die cutting system – able to run at 180 metres per minute and work in-line with the world’s fastest digital print engines

• Gap sensing and knife setting – to save time on set up and changeovers

• Big Foot 50-ton capacity hot foil and embossing module – with multiple foil feeding across and along the web – to create new effects and finishes that will give you a competitive advantage

• Flatbed screen printing module – to add value with relief varnishes or vibrant screen inks

• Crossover module – to create multilayered, novelty or promotional labels, digitally

• Lamination in register module – enables pre-printed web to be laminated to the main web in perfect register

• DigiJet – digital embellishment module to create high quality digital embellishments

Dayne said the ABG converting line could connect to the HP Indigo 6K Digital Press, but for CMYKhub’s purposes, it will be kept separate in a near-line formation.

“We will run it near-line and we will always run near-line. We will end up with multiple finishing lines for this,” he said.

THE GROWING CMYKhub BUSINESS

All three machines are installed at CMYKhub’s new Melbourne premises, which the company has moved to in the interim before relocating to an even bigger space next year.

“We are in the transition of moving factories and Currie Group has been very good to accommodate us in our current factory constraints and environment. We have a smaller footprint than we would like but Currie Group has managed to fit in all the installs,” Dayne said.

In the future, CMYKhub envisages itself to continually add on new departments driven by customer demands, and looks to continuing its long-standing relationship with Currie Group.

“This means we need the right equipment, and Currie Group has been and will be key in facilitating that. As of now, the new EFI machine ensures that we’re increasing our range of products, quantities and volumes that we offer customers. At the same time, the reach into the labels space allows us to provide more to our current customer base,” Dayne said.

“As we look towards growth, we only foresee Currie Group to be supportive of it and we’re confident in its ability to continue to service our business’ needs.”

“As Currie Group’s portfolio continues to expand in line with market demand there will be greater opportunities for the relationship with CMYKhub to further expand,” Whitehead said.

“As a long-standing supplier to CMYKhub, our relationship allows us to work together as partners on a range of new projects and investments. It’s partnerships such as these that encourage us to evolve as a leading technology solution provider, ensuring that we can offer our customers the widest e2e portfolio to meet industry needs whilst maintaining high levels of service and technical support to match,” Daws added.

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