The UK's favourite print show - MacMate

PROFILE
Dave Bullivant (left) and Paul Newton are
key members of the management team
with chief executive Jim Newton and
director Mike Younger.
40 May 2011 www.printbusinessmagazine.co.uk
images and amending templates to suit a specific store and
printed on the Onset digital presses.
“We aim to make the customer’s job easier, writing bespoke
customers for retail customers so that all their promotional
activities can be managed online,” says Newton. This includes
being able to calculate costs for large format print, something else
that is not widely available in off the shelf MIS. “Existing MIS
are great but we would end up having to adapt it to suit our
needs, so we decided we needed something that would meet the
needs of our own business,” says Bullivant.
THE WORKFLOW IS MORE USUAL, Imprint using Esko
Artwork’s Odystar PDF workflow to feed the Rips. Once printed,
die cutting is courtesy of a mammoth Crossland platen and
fulfillment wrapping takes place in the centre of the factory. A
recent addition has been an Esko Artwork Kongsberg digital
cutting table allowing Imprint to take on 3D displays. It has
added expertise in this area understanding that this is equally
essential to success in providing the free standing display units
that are a key feature of point of sale material. “We produced this
for an American customer who told us what we did was ‘the best
executed campaign he had ever had from a vendor in the UK’,”
says Newton.
The latest investment has been the first extended format
Xerox iGen4 in the UK. This will produce smaller format point
of sale work, variable data print and will reduce dependence on
local litho printers, particularly for fast turnaround jobs. It has
its own area of the factory, away from the Onsets. “Now we can
print those fast turnaround jobs ourselves rather than having to
find a very friendly supplier when same day delivery is required
and that can be difficult,” says Newton.
THE IT SYSTEM TRACKS JOB PROGRESS which is displayed
on a huge flat panel monitor that everyone can see. Operators
watch live information including productivity levels, which
machine and crew is proving most efficient in terms of both
square metres images and beds filled over the shift, the day or
week and so on.
The idea is to prompt a degree of competition between the
press crews and raise awareness about the impact on business
performance. Press operators are trained in how to run the
presses to achieve the best quality and maintain highest
reliability. Some have been sent on Inca’s advanced operator
training to allow greater amounts of maintenance to be handled
in house.
Training is a key element to how Imprint operates. Staff are
able to work across different machines and departments if
demand dictates. “And it’s important to have multi-tasking
people. You can’t tell someone that ‘this is the only job you will
ever do’,” Bullivant adds.
The directors have been known to get down on the shop floor
and to help pack during the busiest periods. But management
does not get to operate the machines despite succumbing to
‘printers disease’. Bullivant says: “We are very hands on and we
love machines as many printers do. But we have to think beyond
that.”
THERE IS A DAY EACH WEEK SET ASIDE for what the
management calls “working on the business”, a step away from
the dealing with the immediate production issues and forcing an
agenda of dealing with deeper issues, looking ahead and thinking
strategically. This is something that sets Imprint apart from those
that are constantly engaged in the rat race for work. Bullivant
says it, but all the directors would agree: “It’s the people that have
invested during the recession that are going to be best placed
coming out.” n