Brydian Cards buys Genius

Print Solutions

Brydian Cards expects to double its gift card output to 100,000,000 per year following an £850,000 company wide investment programme spearheaded by the installation of a Genius 52UV five colour anilox press supplied by KBA (UK) Ltd.

The Dorset company plans to more than double its turnover by 2019. Brydian largely provides a trade service and can produce everything from low volume proofs and one off card designs to runs of millions. It also specialises in the design and manufacture of a comprehensive range of plastic card products and has a growing list of products from plastic membership cards, loyalty cards and gift cards to key fobs, key tags, Photo ID cards and other non-credit card sized plastic products.

The 52UV prints five colours with extended delivery/UV coater. It can handle substrates 0.1 to 0.8 mm and prints everything from plastics (PVC, ABS, PS, PE, PET, PC), carton and paper to lenticulars and even wood. It can run waterless, analogue or digital plates and has a print quality that has been compared to photogravure. With productivity of 8000 sheets per hour, it features semi-automatic plate change to allow make readies in just five minutes with typical run up waste of less founded in 1998 than 12 sheets.

Brydian Cards’ managing director Grahame Johnson said, ‘We are one year into our five year plan to increase turnover from £2 million to £5 milliion. We have already invested in finishing solutions to support the increased production and the new Genius will run alongside our existing Presstek 52DI.’

He continued, ‘We were nearing the point where we were running the Presstek 24 hours a day, which is a vulnerable position, and we also wanted something that could handle longer runs because our customers are demanding larger volumes. Where once 100,000 cards were being requested, we are now being asked for five million.

‘There are a number of operations that are considered leaders in card production in the UK because they can handle higher volumes, whereas we have been associated more with mid-length runs. The Genius 52UV will put us nearer the big boys.’