The Scottish printer has completed a significant upgrade of its digital print capability to keep up with growing demand. McAllister Litho Glasgow, one of Scotland’s largest printers, has made a £500,000 investment to boost its digital print capability for digital and large format output.
Photo by PRINT BUSINESS.
McAllister Litho Glasgow has installed a Colorado M5 and Arizona 1360 GTF flatbed printer and a V1350 toner press with inline booklet maker, all from Canon. Alongside these are a Vivid Matrix laminator (capable of foil application) with a Veloblade 3000 digital cutting table and Polar 78N Plus guillotine.
Director Brian McAllister says: “We are a commercial litho printer, but we have always supplied digital and wide format. This new kit and investment in this area is stepping up the game.
The technology has also developed. “Quality is now excellent,” he says. “Registration, back up and colour control is so much better than it was in the past. Digital technology is moving at a fast pace and changing how we operate, this will be only the second canon V1350 installed in Scotland.”
The company is also geared up to be effective at long runs in commercial print thanks to a eight-colour B1 Komori with Mabeg reel feeder supported by a five-colour B1 Komori, its not unusual for the eight-colour to have million plus runs on, The investment in digital will deliver more fire power for short and fast turnaround runs. The new guillotine will handle this output as well as the small format litho work, says McAllister.
The boost to its large format capability will have an even greater impact on the business. Until the arrival of the pair of Canons, large format was provided by an Epson Surecolor and Roland, and any rigid materials needed to be print and mounted. The UV Arizona flatbed will enable printing direct to substrate and can cover a wide range of materials. The rollfed UV Gel Colorado is substantially faster than the Epson and will open the way to expanding the range of products MLG can offer, some interesting effects can be created with this machine which will help breaking into new markets.
The flatbed will also be able to print media roll materials and be coupled with the Veloblade cutting table. MLG has also taken Vivid’s Core packaging design software, which allows the company to select or design the carton type and adjust this for the customer, applying artwork and sending it as a 3D interactive proof for remote approval.
“Then we can produce a live sample for them without having to cut out the box and assemble by hand for each adjustment. It’s a massive time saver for us and a real game changer for the bespoke packaging market,” says McAllister.
For the moment the litho department is not being challenged by inkjet technologies he says.” The technology is good and suits a lot of business models but at the moment it’s not for us, That may change in the future as speed increases and cost come down a bit, who knows, that could be our next investment.”