The first UK printer to invest in the Jet Press 720S back in 2016 has now upgraded to Fujifilm’s third generation Jet Press 750S model. At the same time, the West Midlands company has also become one of the earliest investors in Fujifilm’s revolutionary Platesense programme, further enhancing both the offset and digital strands of its partnership with Fujifilm.
“We’ve been delighted with the performance of the Jet Press 720S since our investment three years ago,” says the company’s director, Jamie Emmerson. “It’s boosted our reputation without doubt and it’s given us the ability to take on some high quality and high profile short run work that we simply wouldn’t have been able to consider otherwise – including a bespoke, large format book for Bernie Ecclestone based on his private collection of F1 cars. Since the investment, we’ve seen our digital turnover double, through a combination of acquiring new business and moving shorter run work from our litho presses.
“During the August switch-over – when our 720S press was removed and the 750S installed – we found ourselves without a Jet Press for a few weeks for the first time in several years and had to migrate jobs onto other digital platforms or to our litho presses. We had a few of our regular customers get in touch to ask if we’d done anything differently as they didn’t think the quality was quite up to the standard they had become used to. That really drove home to us just how valuable the extra quality offered by the Jet Press has been to us.
“With the Jet Press 750S now up and running, we can offer that same level of quality, but with more speed and using less power. It’s a win-win from our point of view – we can simultaneously increase the rate of our digital business growth and reduce our environmental footprint.”
At the same time as making this important investment to secure the future of its digital business, Emmerson Press has also made an equally important investment in its offset printing process, signing up to Fujifilm’s revolutionary Platesense programme.
“We’ve been a Fujifilm plates customer for seven years now,” continues Emmerson. “And we’ve been very happy with the quality of the plates and the service we’ve received from Fujifilm over that time. We decided that we needed to replace our two existing platesetters and Fujifilm’s Platesense programme, once we looked into it, seemed the obvious way to do this. We can now lease CTP equipment rather than having to buy up-front and Fujifilm takes care of the collection of scrap aluminium, significantly reducing our administration time and costs.
“The Fujifilm Superia plates we’re using under the Platesense agreement are harder wearing than those we were using previously and, as they are processless, it also means that we’re now reducing our water consumption substantially. Our old processor used 12 pints of water per plate. Now we’re making plates using no water at all. That means a small cost saving in our water bill – but that’s not why we’re doing it. Just as the Jet Press 750S upgrade has given us the opportunity to substantially reduce our environmental impact through lower energy use, the move to processless plates is helping us to do the same through reducing our water consumption dramatically.”
Says Andy Kent, Divisional Manager Fujifilm Graphic Systems UK: “Fujifilm is proud to be a company with a proven track record of innovation in both offset and digital print. While we’re right at the cutting edge of digital print technology, we’re also constantly innovating on the offset side of the business – not just in terms of technology – but in helping our customers to completely rethink the way that they do business, boosting efficiencies, reducing waste and growing profits in a challenging market. We’re proud to have been both a digital and offset solutions partner to Emmerson Press for some years now and we’re delighted that they have chosen to reinvest with Fujifilm to move both sides of their business forward into the future.”
