Spot Productions sets digital printing foundation with Fuji Xerox and experiences 300 per cent increase in turnover

Since investing in digital printing to complement its offset printing business, Queensland-based Spot Productions has experienced phenomenal growth, witnessing a 300 per cent increase in turnover in the last year alone.

Aiding the company’s growth is the 700 Digital Color Press, which has helped it to diversify its client service offerings while increasing the quality and turnaround of digital print jobs. With digital printing constituting 25 per cent of the business and page impressions doubling by the month, Spot Productions expects digital to represent nearly half of its revenues within the next year.

Existing technology stretched to the limit
Established in 2002 as a conventional offset printer, Spot Productions first entered the digital printing market in 2006 after acquiring a DocuColor 6075 production colour printer. According to managing director Simon Carmody, (pictured) the company was averaging 15 per cent year-on-year growth at the time, but gradually started outgrowing its existing Fuji Xerox equipment due to increased demand for digital print jobs.   

Carmody says the company invested in the very latest digital printing as well as offset printing equipment in early 2009 as part of a strategic decision to grow the business and diversify its service offerings for clients.

Today, Spot Productions offers a full suite of offset and digital printing and pre-press services, including envelopes, mail-outs, brochures, newspaper inserts, barcode and ticketing, access passes, and postcards.

Versatile and flexible solution to boost capacity
Spot Productions installed the 700 Digital Color Press in April 2009 to set up a strong foundation for a successful digital printing business, becoming the first printer in Queensland to adopt the technology.

As the 700 Digital Color Press is an entry-level digital press offering high-end functionality, it was the ideal solution for Spot Productions to meet its full colour printing requirements at high speeds. 

“Customers and companies are always time poor, so digital printing is becoming a more efficient and cost-effective way to handle printing requirements.”

Carmody adds that he selected the 700 Digital Color Press for its “flexibility, reliability, image quality, as well as ability to load more paper and back-up register functionality”.

Strong foundation for future growth
Since installing the 700 Digital Color Press in April, Spot Productions has been able to significantly boost its capacity to handle an increasing demand for digital printing, while complementing its offset business more efficiently.  In only six months, the press is handling double the volume of page impressions to support the company’s booming digital printing business.

“We’ve gone from averaging 160,000 to 300,000 page impressions per month, and expect digital printing to constitute between 35 – 45 per cent of all print jobs by the end of this year,” says Carmody.

Improving on existing output
As the 700 Digital Color Press is able to handle the entire finishing process inline, Carmody says the workflow process is more flexible and efficient and results in less wastage.

“Our average print job is about 50,000 page impressions and we can now handle print runs that require a quick turnaround more quickly and efficiently.”

Cost and productivity savings
Carmody adds that the 700 Digital Color Press has delivered real cost and productivity savings.

“We’ve achieved real cost-savings and been able to pass the benefits on to customers because the press can handle multiple jobs at the same time. We’ve also saved on labour costs as our existing staff can handle both the offset and digital machinery.”

Quality on par with offset
To put the product’s quality to the ultimate test, Spot Productions hosted a Lithographic Institute of Australia (LIA) networking evening in May 2009, giving members of the print industry the opportunity to compare the image quality of digital and offset prints. After being asked to spot the difference between a digital versus offset print job, Carmody says that the majority of guests could not tell the difference.

“More than 90 guests attended the event and very few could tell which print was produced on the 700 Digital Color Press versus our offset printer. This proves that digital printing has truly caught up with offset in terms of image quality,” concludes Carmody.

For more information visit www.fujixerox.com.au