Minuteman Press in Bath, the UK’s largest Minuteman franchise, has started the New Year in great shape with the addition of a new cutting table to boost the services they can offer in-house.
The addition of the Italian manufactured Valiani Optima V 250 flat-bed cutting table means the team at Minuteman Press can now quickly perform a variety of services including frame mount-board cutting, boxes and displays, contour cutting, embossing, stickers, as well making prototypes, marketing products and mock-ups.
Speaking about the investment decision, Dave Dixon, Sales & Marketing Director at Minuteman Press Bath, said: “We needed something that was going to provide us with a quality short-run in-house cutting facility. Sending such work out just adds time and cost to a job, in addition to the fact that you lose control over production.
“We visited Drupa last year to see products that could fit the bill, and after visiting the Valiani factory in Italy, the Valiani Optima V 250 ticked all of the boxes for us.
“Short-run packaging, shaped business cards, folders and flyers, plus signage work were the initial areas of work that we had in mind, but we are already discovering a host of other possibilities.
“Almost immediately we picked up a job requiring cut tabs within a report and cut lettering from rigid PVC – the Valiani was able to handle that very quickly and very easily. In the packaging market we are talking to a number of companies about test cartons that they want to produce.
“The Valiani gives us a very cost effective solution to producing such ultra-short “proofing” runs.
“The potential of such a product is limited only by the imagination – and our in-house design team have very vivid imaginations!”
Blades for cutting and heads for creasing and perforating can be used, and materials from thin card through to rigid PVC can be handled by the unit.
Minuteman Press Bath, which is a Xerox Premier Partner, prints with a variety of Xerox digital presses, including the Xerox 1000i, as well as HP Latex and HP Inkjet wide format machines. Longer run two-colour work can be produced on an AB Dick litho press.
A team of 15 work at the now 19 year old business, located in the centre of Bath.
Commenting on the purchase, Ray Hillhouse, Vice President Offline Business at Morgana Systems said: “We are delighted that Minuteman Press Bath has become the first UK business to see the potential offered by the largest format Optima 250 cutting table.
“These machines offer a whole host of possibilities for printers and their customers. Graphic designers get very excited about the possibilities that are on offer, and the young team at Minuteman Press are already coming up with new and interesting applications.”
