The press was installed at Sudbury-based Anglia in February at a cost of £385,000. The company said the investment will enable it to handle rapidly increasing demand – Anglia's sales had recently jumped from £1.4m to £2.4m and work going through the Domino is now responsible for 25% of the firm's turnover.
The Domino was selected after a scoping period, which involved attending LabelExpo last September and discussions with a number of manufacturers. It will take on longer runs and extend Anglia’s capabilities into new applications.
“We were getting more work than our older machines could cope with and they were not as accurate as our customers required,” said managing director Ian Woodhead.
“From LabelExpo, we narrowed down four potential options and sent memory sticks containing 40 jobs to the manufacturer to test each machine’s output.
“The Domino came out on top in many avenues, including ink cost, competitive price and the fact Domino themselves are only an hour away in Cambridge. The professionalism and support they offered us was streets above.
“Some of our kit has been shut down since the new machine came in and the operators of those machines have been trained to use the Domino. We will be selling some machines on and hope they serve someone else well. For us, every square inch of the factory is full right now.”
Printing at speeds up to 75m/min with a resolution of 600dpi, the Domino N610i is designed for rapid job changeover and makes use of UV-curable inks.
Woodhead described the machine as a “godsend” for its ability to print on almost any substrate; the company intends to explore shrink film and flexible packaging as new product offerings.
To support the introduction of the inkjet machine, Anglia spent £90,000 on a die-cutting and finishing unit from Daco to run offline and a further £25,000 on rearranging the warehouse to make room for the two new pieces of kit.
In terms of digital kit, the Domino works alongside an HP Indigo ws4500, and the business also offers letterpress, offset and flexo printing.
Anglia Labels traditionally delivers short runs – on average 1,000 linear metres per job – for customers in the local area, and the other presses will take care of this remit as the Domino works on more extensive jobs. The firm employs 20 workers.