The machine is being installed at the company’s 8,000sqm Bristol premises this week and is expected to be up and running by the end of next week. It will sit alongside the first i300, which was installed last summer, and has replaced three Xerox toner-based digital machines: a Xerox iGen and two DocuColors.
Latcham said it chose the i300 for its high-quality print, reliable and consistent output and its ability to provide a wide variety of formats and paper options, ensuring the business has the capacity to continue to deliver a high-quality service.
The installation of the firm’s first i300 followed an in-depth implementation and training process with Canon, and Latcham said its production speeds have increased with no sacrifice in quality since the machine arrived.
While the firm surveyed the market and looked at a range of alternatives, Latcham said it was ultimately happy to deepen its relationship with Canon, “who have proved to be a reliable and valuable partner”, and managing director Mike Hughes told Printweek “the i300 was continuing to be the best fit for us for what we’re doing”.
“We had a really strong year last year and we managed to bring on board some regular contract business as well,” he said.
“So bringing in the new machine has supported that and just provides some additional contingency for us and some growth capabilities for the business too.”
He added: “We still have some smaller toner-based devices doing short-run work but most of our printing by volume has now moved over to inkjet, which is a good thing as the inkjet quality is very high and environmentally a much better process as well.”
The i300 uses fully recyclable water-based inkjet inks, moving away from the use of microplastics in the printing process, and uses reduced energy per page printed.
The machines have also enabled Latcham to bring certain types of work back in-house.
“Some of our high-quality colour work was previously being produced litho in advance and then we would overprint that, whereas now we are able to produce all of the work on the inkjet presses because the quality is so good that customers are very happy with us using that process,” Hughes said.
From its headquarters in Bristol and offices in Crawley, Latcham offers print production, mailing, secure document fulfilment and specialist digital communications to clients across local authorities and the health, utilities and energy, membership and financial services sectors. It employs 103 staff and has a turnover of around £13m.
In October the business acquired fellow Bristol firm Accent, which Hughes said “has settled in very well”.
