South Yorkshire-based trade printer Route One Print has recently expanded its service to include an Express 24 hour turnaround on key product lines. The company specialises in offering standardised digital and litho printing to trade resellers and recently gained a place on the Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 list.
Jack Wilmott, brand manager said, ‘The market is increasingly moving towards quick turnaround work. We live in an immediate society, where consumers expect everything to be delivered quickly. Print is no different to items people purchase through other online ecommerce platforms such as Amazon. Our customers were increasingly requesting for work to be dispatched faster in order to help them not only hit their customers deadlines but also to compete with online offerings from other online printers that serve the same customer groups. So the question was never really whether or not we should offer it but more a case of ensuring that we could meet the demand.’
The new service brought about a number of changes in the company’s production hub including the installation of a Duplo DC-746. Of the new addition Mr Wilmott said ‘The DC-756 is a great multi-functional piece of kit. It allows us to fully automate the cutting and folding of short-run digital and does so in one pass meaning less downtime between production processes. Ultimately it will help us move work from the presses and through to our dispatch department at a much quicker rate ensuring we hit the tighter deadlines we now have to work to.’
The company is also switching to LED UV inks for litho work through an upgrade to its Heidelberg SX102 B1 press. Mr Wilmott said, ‘The UV inks not only dry instantly meaning work can be moved onto our finishing department more immediately, but they also offer greater vibrancy, especially on uncoated stocks, which tend to absorb a lot more of the ink. The new ink will also eliminate the possibility of set-off or bruising. It was very important to us that we were able to maintain the high quality standards that our customers have come to expect from us, especially with the move to producing work quicker. We didn’t want there to have to be a trade-off between the two factors.’
Mr Wilmott stressed the importance of a consistent and reliable service by adding ‘We currently dispatch 99.7% of jobs on time. This is something we are incredibly proud of given that we dispatch about 2500 to 3000 jobs on a daily basis. This is the standard we work to and we did not want to offer a faster turnaround unless we could maintain that success rate.’
