Xerox Colour 1000 digital production press
chosen to allow for expansion into new markets

L to R Jonny Sewell GPS Norman McNellis Xerox and Ian McCurry GPSGPS Colour Graphics has moved into digital printing, investing £240,000 in a Xerox Colour 1000 Digital Production Press with EFI workflow software and Plockmatic inline booklet maker. The press is designed to meet the growing demand for complex, short run print jobs, and was chosen by GPS in order to produce high quality booklets, one-to-one documents and other print jobs on a wide variety of paper stocks. This follows a substantial financial investment by the company of £2.2 million to expand its lithographic offering last year.

GPS is a large commercial printer, based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Its decision to move into digital print was taken in order to diversify its business model and enter the colour print-on-demand market. The aim is to become a one-stop shop for all its customers' printing requirements.

"This is our first significant move into digital printing and after assessing a range of options we concluded that Xerox provided the best-fit technology to suit our customers’ needs, “said Ian McCurry, Managing Director of GPS. “We are now in a position to add to the high quality services we offer and provide additional value to our customers, as well as competing for a much wider range of business.

Although we are Northern Ireland’s second biggest commercial printing company, until recently we have exclusively had a litho print offering. However, with the needs of customers changing all the time, now felt like the right moment to invest in this technology. The Colour 1000 press not only allows us to take on more work, but to also produce high quality ISO Colour 12647 proofs, which is vital for the continued success of our expanding litho business. We are excited that we are the only commercial printing company in Northern Ireland to be in a position to offer such a complete litho and digital service.”

The investment comes as GPS celebrates its 100th anniversary as an incorporated company. To mark the occasion, it has also unveiled a new corporate identity and website as well as launching its own web-to-print service called PrintStore.

Apart from using the Xerox Colour 1000 press to consolidate its existing customer base GPS is expanding into new markets. The company now produces variable data and short run print jobs, work that was previously turned away or outsourced. It has also already carved out a niche in large multipage saddle stitched, wiro and perfect bound books for a range of customers that include financial services, pharmaceutical sectors, design agencies, and the public sector.

"This is a prime example of the way we can help our new customers grow their print volumes using digital print," said Norman McNellis, Business Manager, Graphic Arts, Xerox Ireland. "Many commercial printers are investing in digital print to take their businesses into new markets and the potential return on investment is enormous.”

“As we work with these businesses to develop and maximise the use of their digital equipment, we expect them to find that more of their customers will choose to work with them because of the high quality print that Xerox equipment delivers. In a relatively short space of time GPS has grown to become one of Xerox’s largest and busiest customers in the graphic communications sector in Northern Ireland.”

The Xerox Colour 1000 Presses print at 2400 x 2400 dpi and use Xerox's new low-melt Emulsion Aggregation (EA) Dry Ink, which delivers an offset-like finish. EA Dry ink also requires less energy to manufacture than conventional toners.

http://www.gpscolour.co.uk/Home

For more information, visit http://www.xerox.com/