MacroArt has invested over £500,000 in a raft of new hardware and software at its production hub in St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, including the UK’s first Durst P5 Tex iSub dye-sublimation printer, as part of a productivity and sustainability-enhancing initiative.
The company has added several key pieces of equipment to their plant list, including a Mimaki UCJV300 and a Canon 1650 UV-gel machines as well as the Durst dye-sub. MacroArt’s operations director Mark Rose told Digital Textile Printer that ‘The Durst handles an increasingly wide variety of soft signage, from standard in-store silicon edged soft signage for multiple retail outlets to larger, stand-building backdrops and signage for events and exhibitions.’
On the software side, linking directly into the recently acquired Durst Lift ERP system, a new Enfocus Switch Pitstop server and Tillia Labs Phoenix AI software systems collectively provide instant artwork checking and accurate proofing. The new software is connected using visual workflows, allowing for the processing of artwork files directly from MacroArt’s ERP system via an API through to the Rip stage of the production process, without requiring manual intervention.
MacroArt says it is seeing significant reductions in material, energy and ink wastage through the efficient ganging and collating of multiple projects, and in turn, this efficiency is reducing lead times for clients, with increases in output by as much as 150% being regularly achieved, on top of the reduced wastage.
Mr Rose added, ‘At MacroArt, our forward planning is as much about delivering a truly sustainable result, as it is about enhancing productivity, and with these considerable technical additions in both our hardware and software capabilities, we are achieving both. We know that there are two sides to the delivery of an effective sustainable project – minimising waste in production and maximising recycling and reuse of the graphics we produce. With our in-house efficiency improvements, and the ground breaking initiative at the Ice exhibition, we are addressing both, with the passion and technical expertise for which we are known.’