Konica Minolta enables Page Visions to combine improved print efficiency and higher output speeds with quality and resilience.
When Page Visions experienced a surge in orders it turned to Konica Minolta to rapidly expand its print capacity and meet demand for high volume, small quantity runs. The design and print agency needed to increase speed without compromising the quality of the output, or resilience and reliability for which it has a well-earned reputation. Another crucial factor was the need for the solution to optimise the available space at its factory in Slough.
The printed products that Page Visions supply can vary enormously, but typically much of the output is internal business documents for big companies – including training materials and promotional documents for events. Additionally, the company has produced official printed materials for film premiers on behalf of a well-known movie production company for many years, as part of a broad mix of print-on-demand applications. Operating in a fast moving and reacting environment, a large proportion of Page Visions’ print on demand output involves high volumes of orders involving small quantities, but with short and strict lead times. Its customers demand a consistent quality of products, which means the company’s print systems must be resilient, flexible to changing demands, and available at a moment’s notice with minimal downtime. To keep pace with customer demand, Page Visions was looking for a suitable upgrade production press that offered reliability and quality, but also suitable production speeds and was able to fit the available space at the production facility. Tom Griffiths, Director at Page Visions commented, “We have quite a constrained factory space, but needed more output capacity. We were therefore looking for a solution that would match both these criteria.”
Having finalised the decision to upgrade its printing systems, Page Solutions researched its options and drew up a shortlist of potential suppliers. Having carefully considered all the options available, the company chose a pair of Konica Minolta’s AccurioPress C12000 presses, based upon their ability to deliver flexibility, operational efficiency, and attractive return on investment. Konica Minolta also supplied inline Trimmer Units and IQ-501 Intelligent Quality Optimizers. Tom commented, “The AccurioPress C12000 ticks a lot of boxes for us, with the long paper tray being particularly useful. It is unique to Konica Minolta and when we saw it versus the opposition, we thought - that really is a neat solution. We have the option to go to nine trays, but we are only using six on both machines. This gives us a combination of a short and extended paper deck. We have six standard decks with the option to use them as long-sheet too.” He continued, “The two trimmer units afford us the opportunity to finish in-line, which is a good optimisation for a significant part of our work, as we can finish it in-line without it going offline to be finished. This gives us a great deal of flexibility. All these factors combined make the Konica Minolta solution very compelling.” The IQ-501 units have also made a big impact, as Tom added, “These scan the sheets for defects whilst running, giving us inline calibration, which means we can consistently manage the output between the two presses in a sophisticated way, maintaining the standard between them. It also facilitates back-to-back and sheet-to-sheet registration, which is really impressive.”
The AccurioPress C12000 ticks a lot of boxes for us, with the long paper tray being particularly useful. It is unique to Konica Minolta and when we saw it versus the opposition, we thought - that really is a neat solution. We have the option to go to nine trays, but we are only using six on both machines. This gives us a combination of a short and extended paper deck. We have six standard decks with the option to use them as long-sheet too.
Tom Griffiths
Director at Page Visions