Optichrome chairman Ted Stephens (left), and managing director John Heywood with the Xeikon 8500.
Woking-based print and e-solutions provider Optichrome has upgraded its digital print capability with the UK’s first installation of the Xeikon 8500 web-fed colour press. This replaces another Xeikon – a DCP/50D, which has been producing most of the £5.5 million turnover firm’s digital output for eight years.
The company handles a lot of financial work from the City of London, as well as work for the pensions sector. Run lengths can vary from a few copies up to 40,000 copies for a 28-page pensions title with variable data throughout. The capability of the Xeikon 8500 to print single-pass duplex and ensure data integrity is therefore a key factor when talking to the financial community, according to managing director John Heywood.
He said: ‘Our sales team can approach such businesses with confidence, knowing that they are able to talk to the client about a unique solution. Where work involves variable input front and back it is mission critical that the right data is printed on the reverse of the sheet. By printing them at the same time, as happens on the Xeikon, such mistakes are eliminated from the printing stage.’
Digital print is now contributing 50% of the business and 80% of the profit for Optichrome, which celebrates its 50th year in 2013.
The Xeikon 8500 has a throughput of up to 160 A4s per minute, is capable of handling prints of up to B2 in format, and can handle sheet weights from 40 gsm up to 350 gsm. It also has inline colour control and image quality of 1200 dpi.
