FUJIFILM North America Corporation, Graphic Systems Division today announced that McCoy Printing of Torrington, Connecticut has installed an Inca Onset S40 wide format UV inkjet printer to boost efficiencies, increase output quality, speed up job turnaround, and lower cost for their customers. McCoy, a family-owned business since 1998, specializes in screen, offset, and wide format digital printing, producing the most demanding POP and outdoor campaigns.
“We believe in employing the latest technology to improve quality, consistency, and efficiency in the printing process,” said Andy Riberdy, president of McCoy, Ltd. “We looked at our existing equipment and decided that new digital inkjet technologies could increase our print quality and speed up turnaround times. We felt that we needed to make new investments to enable us to offer our customers more value and effectively compete for new business.”
Conducting a methodical and careful search, McCoy considered a number of wide format inkjet printing platforms, eventually narrowing their focus to the Inca Onset S40 from Fujifilm. “We looked at a number of competing technologies,” Riberdy said, “but what really drove the decision for us was the astounding print quality of the S40, which none of the other platforms approached.”
The ability of the Inca Onset S40 to produce outstanding print quality was a perfect match for McCoy’s demanding requirements. “The S40’s high quality gave us the edge we were looking for,” Riberdy said. “A good portion of our clients do fashion work where flesh tones are critical along with color and gloss. We’re producing near-offset quality on the S40, and our customers have been very impressed.”
In addition to higher print quality, McCoy enjoys increased cost savings and higher efficiencies when printing on the Onset compared to traditional offset printing. “Work previously done offset is now being printed on the Onset,” according to Riberdy, “Getting up to color on our offset press results in significant waste which gets extremely costly when printing on high value substrates such as plastic. The Onset can achieve the quality our offset customers demand, and we can gang images on the large Onset print-bed to turn jobs quickly with virtually no waste. Customers also benefit from the Onset S40’s ability to print on substrates up to two inches thick. “Before, any job over 40-point required mounting and finishing, increasing turnaround time, and cost. Now, we can do it direct to substrate on the Onset saving both time and money.”
“We knew there was more we could be doing for our customers,” said John Toombs, sales manager at McCoy. “There were some jobs we couldn’t compete on, mainly because of run length and quality expectations, but the S40 provides us with lower cost compared with our offset presses, especially on short run lengths. Now we’re able to provide higher quality, shorter run lengths, and faster turnaround times, and pass along cost savings to our customers.”
Color management was another critical aspect of the selection process for McCoy, an area where Fujifilm’s expertise provided a definite advantage. Fujifilm’s Print Performance Team worked with McCoy and helped them to earn G7® certification. All print methods – screen, offset and digital inkjet – are now running to G7 standards and producing consistent color across all three print technologies. In addition, using ColorGATE software, the printer was able to consolidate all of their existing RIPs into one. McCoy now has a single production platform and one operator interface with the ability to drive all equipment in the shop.
“It’s a tremendous achievement for us,” Riberdy said, “to have one standard interface across all platforms. We now run all our inkjet equipment, including competitive inkjet presses and our computer to screen device with one RIP.”
Toombs spoke of one particular customer, a “global communications company,” that has demanding color standards in order to ensure brand integrity. “The company produces a number of campaigns, in varying run lengths and in different formats, some offset, and some wide format. The G7 print method and consistency in our color management gives us the ability to deliver the color integrity they demand, across all of the devices in our shop.”
“New technology is always a good story to tell,” Riberdy said. “We talked to some of our customers about our new capabilities with the S40, and they were absolutely stunned by the quality of the samples we showed them. Customers were constantly asking us when the S40 would be up and running so that they could take advantage of the new technology to produce their next job.” Toombs added, “We’re finding new applications for the S40 every day. This is a real avenue for growth for McCoy.”
