Optichrome pumps up the volume with two Versafire CP presses

Print Solutions

Woking printer Optichrome has installed two high speed Versafire CP digital presses to replace two Xerox Versants and to provide the volume required by this busy operation.

‘Reliability was key to our choice because of the nature of the work we do,’ said John Heywood, managing director. ‘Virtually all our digital work is heavily personalised financial and pension scheme reporting which can involve many thousands of multi-page brochures. We cannot fail to meet agreed and legally binding postage and delivery dates so by investing in two identical machines we can run the same job and know that the quality will match. Our load balancing is simplified.’

Optichrome undertook a thorough investigation before making this buying decision. It wanted a machine that was robust, easy to use and could produce to very high quality. Work was tested at Heidelberg’s Brentford showroom and there was a user site visit to see how the Versafire performed in a production environment.

‘The machines are only just in but early indications are that the equipment is excellent. Our sales team are very impressed and keen to show the results to both existing and potential clients,’ said John. ‘We love the image quality, long sheet capability, robust build, uptime and speed.’

Operators have easily adapted to the Versafire CP technology, helped by the fact the company is continuing with the Hyper RIP that it had before.

‘Now we are able to migrate more work from litho to digital (which we couldn’t even consider before). The improved reliability has given us a big confidence boost and now we can quote short turnaround times with confidence. The quality is improved, especially tints and flat colours,’ added John.

Two years ago, the company bought a Speedmaster XL 75-5+L which it runs using Heidelberg’s Saphira consumables.