Inca opens £700,000 site to boost capacity

The £700,000 move also means that in the future the company can further increase production at the site, which currently operates a single shift, from its average monthly volume of four machines a month, up to a potential of 12 or more if it introduced a double shift in the future.

"If you added up all the floor space of our old site then this one is only a little bigger, but this is a proper factory," said Inca chief executive Bill Baxter.

The £36m turnover business, which was founded in 2000 and subsequently bought by Screen in 2005, manufactures the Onset and Spyder series of UV flatbed inkjet printers at the facility, which will also produce the Screen-badged Truepress Jet W1632UV.

The staggered move to the new 5,800sqm leased premises, which is only a few meters from its original home, began in mid July and was completed two weeks ago. As well as a purpose-built manufacturing space, including clean rooms, warehouse, and offices, it also boasts dedicated training facilities. It was officially opened yesterday by the Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Hugh Duberly CBE with Baxter and Screen president and chief operating Officer, Masahiro Hashimoto.

"Inca has always maintained its original pioneering spirit, and even since the economic downturn that began in 2008 it has continued to be successful and even expand. There are nearly 200 people working here and I want to thank them for their hard work to bring this project to fruition," said Hashimoto.

Inca currently exports about 60% of its machines outside of Europe, via Fujifilm’s global sales network, but even though much of the company’s growth is outside of the Eurozone, Baxter said it had no plans to add production facilities outside of the UK.

"The rate of technology change is so quick, machines are getting faster and the quality better really very quickly, which means that you never have a manufacturing process stable enough to put it into a low cost country," said Baxter.

"Our main R&D is about 10 meters from our manufacturing, and as far as I’m concerned that’s already much too far."

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