Category: News

Delighted with our 2017 Sign & Display brochure, contact anyone at GPMi for your copy NOW!!

Well done Suneel and team for all the hard work.

Project Edison – The Brief
The IMAX Waterloo, operated by Ocean Outdoor on behalf of the British Film Institute, is the largest advertising canvas in Europe. Ocean’s brief to Bright Green Technology was simple: maximise the site’s already impressive credentials while improving sustainability and upgrading control functions.

Click here to download the full case study

After spending 15 years building its reputation as a go-to signage and grand format print company, with Mimaki printers at its heart, Carrickfergus-based Signscript Ltd knew that the new Mimaki UJV55-320 LED UV roll-fed printer would give them the long term quality needed to boost production capacity for the retail and exhibition industries.

“We invested in the new 3.2m UV Mimaki printer because we knew it would give us quality, performance and reliability,” explains Signscript’s Managing Director, Brendan Nugent. “After 15 years of using Mimaki printers they have proven to be the best performing printers in the market, with year on year advancement in production speeds.”

Signscript’s motto is ‘Launching your ideas to new heights’ and they’ve even produced a marriage proposal to hang off the back of a plane along with a whole host of signage, banners and other digital print along the way. The investment in the Mimaki UJV55-320 will serve to strengthen that promise, with particular emphasis on an increase in production for retail and exhibition graphics.

“Having the capacity to print up to 3.2m wide is essential for winning bigger contracts in the retail PoS and exhibition sectors,” highlights Brendan. “UV inks give vibrant colours and high blockout which is perfect for customers looking for backlit signage. The UJV55 is terrific value for money and we get low running costs thanks to LED UV curing lamps and economical UV inks.”

The Mimaki UJV55-320 was released in April 2016 and has become a very popular product due to its keen price point and unique set of features. The provision of an inline, post-print LED lightbox allows print quality of backlit signage to be checked during the production run, simulating its installed look and reducing waste and time. The UJV55-320 also features twin roll printing capability, enabling printing on two separate rolls of the same media for simultaneous printing of two different jobs.

Signscript made the investment through specialist Mimaki reseller GPMI Reprocentre who have installed a flurry of UJV55 printers throughout Ireland. “We started providing Signscript with service support and inks five years ago and we’ve seen them make terrific progress,” says Bill Forde, General Manager for GPMI Reprocentre in Northern Ireland. “Their investment in a Mimaki UJV55-320 will give them the tools and production capacity to make a big impact on sectors such as retail and exhibitions and take the company to the next level.”

Further information about Signscript Ltd can be found on its website www.signscript.eu. For GPMI Reprocentre visit www.gpmi.ie.

Thirty print and signage companies attended GPMI/Reprocentre’s two-day SignMakers of Ireland Golf & Fishing Invitational on two championship links at Ballyliffin in Co Donegal, The annual autumn event is always well attended and this year over 80 rounds of golf were played over the two days. Both trophies this year had a Northern Irish winner – Blacksheep www.blacksheepdisplay.com printers in Belfast won on the top rated Glashedy Links, while Sign Services of Belfast won the Society competition. The first hole in one was from Sean Farrell of GPMI and Finbar Heaney of Northern Ireland Plastics, who contributed €4,000 to help fund the event and won the GPMI/Reprocentre supplier of the year award. The event simply doesn’t happen without the support of GPMI/Reprocentre suppliers – Northern Ireland Plastics, Brett Martin Foamlaux, Avery, Altuglas, Norwich Corrugated, HP http://www.hp.com, Agfa http://www.agfa.com, Hybrid Services http://www.hybridservices.ie  /Mimaki, Bright Green Technology, Duracoat, Soyang, MacTac, Neschen, Skybond, DRS/Integart, Politape, GM Media and Molson Canadian.

GPMI/Reprocentre are looking forward to welcoming printers and sign makers to Killarney Golf & Fishing Club on September 8th and 9th, 2017.

Winners; Blacksheep Belfast, Jason Gaston, Dave Hillard, Alan Cowan, Steve Campbell, are presented with their award by Suneel Seetal, second from left, and Enda Brophy, far right

The ladies of Sign Services, Omagh, kick off the 10th Signmakers of Ireland invitational.

The Kieran Finnan Memorial Trophy was won by Susan of Sign Services, Omagh for the long drive. Shane Martin of GPMI won the closest to the pin.

Graphic & Paper Merchants Ireland (GPMI) has purchased Reprocentre, one of Ireland’s largest suppliers of printing equipment and supplies. The bolt-on acquisition has been well received by the general print market here and is considered to be one of the largest investments made by an Irish company in the paper/sign & digital print industry here for many years. The combined turnover of the new group is approximately €40m, supplying a diverse range of products to the signage, digital, plastic, paper and hardware/service market sectors.

PaperlinX UK and several PaperlinX operating companies in Europe entered administration in April last year. However PaperlinX Ireland, formerly Robert Horne, was profitable and solvent at the end of March of the same year. Given this scenario, an opportunity arose to purchase the Irish entity from the then Australian owners of the company, PaperlinX Australia which led to an MBO by director Michael Enda Brophy at the start of April 2015, backed up with a significant investment by Powerflute chairman Dermot Smurfit to the tune of €1m, which gave him a 49 per cent shareholding in the new company. The deal was completed by mid-June of the same year.

Brophy takes up the story.

“The company is about 60 per cent paper and 40 per cent everything else such as graphics, sign & display and a small amount of packaging, “he explained. “The Reprocentre is a very appropriate fit to the business at GPMI because we are dealing with the same customer base but with a totally different yet complimentary set of products. For example, large format digital machines were something we couldn’t sell at GPMI because we could never offer the technical service back-up – now with a full team of service engineers through Reprocentre we can.”

Maximising the potential and synergy of the new, enlarged company is something Brophy see’s as a positive move and very exciting going forward.

“If we were to take over another paper or signage merchant we wouldn’t get the same synergy without dramatic changes to the structure, he said. “For example, with another signage merchant, you wouldn’t get all of the benefits because you are always going to get cross-over’s and that sort of thing. We have almost no cross-over with Reprocentre in what we sell, and that really is the attraction of this deal.”

Reprocentre is a very appropriate fit to the business at GPMI because we are dealing with the same customer base but with a totally different yet complimentary set of products. It is the only company that can offer pretty much everything, from paper to the machines and everything in between and as well as that GPMI has secured the jobs of former PaperlinX employees and is also expanding in such a short space of time, that tells you something.

With a significant amount of its customers involved in sign& display and looking for large format presses, GPMI knew that it could supply this demand if it was part of a multi-national. However, as Brophy pointed out, “we didn’t like that because customers prefer to have local service engineers on the ground here as opposed to waiting on an engineer to come over from elsewhere.”

Another obvious benefit to the ‘fit’ is the ability to supply consumables and other materials to companies after they have purchased a new press. It’s another plus from this transaction and one which Brophy likes.

There is no doubt that the acquisition of Reprocentre is a clever strategic business move. Yes, there are some potential pitfalls that could occur, such as the integration of two different business models, retaining key staff, but the positives greatly outweigh any short term difficulties. And with Dermot Smurfit on board, bringing not just funding to the table, but years of expertise and excellent global contacts with key suppliers, Multi nationals, who for so long controlled the market in Ireland, have a ‘new kid on the block’ to contend with, Irish owned and well able to take them on.

Brophy said that GPMI is now very unique in Ireland for two reasons.

”We are the only company that can offer pretty much everything, from paper to the machines and everything in between and as well as that, we are the only company that have warehouses in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and that’s really important because it means that customers now have a local supplier, regardless of where they’re based.”

Reprocentre buildingReprocentre buildingThe acquisition will see Reprocentre move from its current location on the Nangor road, Dublin 12 and relocate into GPMI’s purpose built premises in the Fonthill Business Park, Fonthill Rd, Dublin 22 during the summer months.

This will result in one logistics team and one head office team although it’s important to point out that both companies will still continue to trade under their respective names.

Brophy summed up the deal by emphasising the positives for both companies and the outlook for GPMI going forward.GPMI PremisesGPMI Premises

“It’s a really good ‘coming together’ of two companies that can now offer customers more than anybody else in the Irish marketplace, both North and South,” he said.” In addition, if you consider that GPMI has secured the jobs of former PaperlinX employees and is also expanding in such a short space of time, that tells you something.This is the biggest thing to happen in the industry in the last five or six years and in my opinion, it’s the start of something big.”

As a way of giving something back to its commercial print customers, GPMI will be hosting an event, ‘Printers of Ireland Golf Invitational’ on 28 May at Palmerstown Stud Golf Course, Johnstown, Co. Kildare. Also for signage customers there is the trip to Donegal in September. Full details are available by contacting Suneel Seetal at suneel.seetal@gpmi-ltd.com

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Dublin-based W.C. O’Brien Sign & Print Ltd has placed an order for the first Mimaki UJV55-320 to go into Ireland, during the recent Sign & Digital UK exhibition, in which the new grand-format, roll-to-roll, UV printer was heralded the star of the show.

“We flew in specifically to have a demo on the new UJV55-320 from Mimaki, having seen the printer at FESPA in March,” explains the company’s director, Andrew O’Brien. “We spoke to Mimaki reseller, Reprocentre and found out the printer was only £60k and realised this was an investment we simply couldn’t miss out on.”

The company’s own print files were produced at the exhibition on the UJV55-320 by UK & Irish Mimaki distributor, Hybrid Services, and O’Brien quickly realised the print quality, size and productivity of the UJV55 along with its keen price point meant it was an opportunity for developing the business further.

“We’re not only going to bring our own grand-format print work in-house, which will speed up our workflow and give us greater control, but we’ll be providing a trade service too, working with independent exhibition companies and sign and graphics installers throughout Ireland to deliver a high-quality printing service for display and exhibition graphics,” continues O’Brien. “We were blown away by the quality, even when our own files were printed at the highest speed the output was exceptional.”

The Mimaki UJV55-320 received a formidable amount of interest at Sign & Digital UK, wowing visitors with its impressive price tag and array of features such as twin-roll simultaneous printing, an internal lightbox for proofing backlit applications on the fly and grand format UV printing onto rolls up to 3.2m wide.

For further information about W.C. O’Brien telephone +353 1 8300924.

Mimaki has announced the introduction of a brand-new 3.2m roll-to-roll inkjet printer. The Mimaki UJV55-320 uses UV-curable ink cured with a low-energy LED light array and will make its European debut at this week’s FESPA Digital exhibition in Amsterdam.
“The new UJV55-320 offers an ideal solution for the huge growth market of grand format backlit graphics; frequently found in airports and other public places,” says Stuart Cole, National Sales Manager – Industrial Products for Mimaki’s exclusive UK and Irish distributor; Hybrid Services Ltd. “With low running costs, thanks to its LED UV curing technology and competitively priced inks, a substantial colour gamut, excellent image opacity and Mimaki’s traditionally high print quality, we’re certain it will have broad appeal. We’re also confident it will deliver class leading performance for its price, making it a highly attractive proposition.”

Anticipated to be one of the standout product launches at next month’s Sign & Digital UK exhibition in Birmingham, the UJV55-320 is a versatile and affordable solution for sign & display applications, delivering speeds of up to 110sq m/h and print resolutions of up to 1,200dpi, depending on the substrate. The UJV55-320 also features a seven colour inkset including white and light cyan / magenta that can be configured in a 4-colour mode or 6-colour set plus the white. Use of instant-curing LED UV ink technology results in graphics that exit the printer dry and are immediately ready for finishing, significantly reducing production cycle times. In addition, UV-curable inks emit no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) minimising its environmental footprint.

Mimaki’s white ink allows printing high quality, vibrant results on transparent and coloured media and three-layer, colour-white-colour printing is especially suitable for production of applications such as window graphics and backlit day and night signs. Moreover, white-only printing is also an option for a stylish look or use on dark substrates. Mimaki Circulation Technology (MCT) maintains white ink print quality and reduces ink waste.

A distinctive feature of the UJV55-320 is the provision of an inline, post-print LED lightbox that enables operators to check printing quality of backlit signage during the production run, simulating its installed look and reducing waste and time. The UJV55-320 also features twin roll printing capability, enabling printing on two separate rolls of the same media for simultaneous printing of two different jobs. Media rolls in twin roll operation can range from 210 to 1,524mm in width, with the distance between the two rolls being automatically detected for faultless performance.

Automatic detection of nozzle faults followed by cleaning and/or nozzle substitution work together with Mimaki’s RasterLink 6 software which features a patented dithering technique which, along with Mimaki Advanced Pass System (MAPS) for higher quality and reduced banding, delivers optimum print quality even at high print speeds and during longer print runs.

“The UJV55-320 draws on Mimaki’s significant heritage in high quality graphics printing,” concludes Cole. “Not only will it complement existing technologies within the Mimaki range but it is also expected to deliver an affordable solution for companies looking at entering the sector.”

The recent Irish Print Awards saw Addprint Ltd win the Luxury Packaging Printer of the Year award for its cosmetic beauty box project for Bourjois Paris, which it printed on its recently installed Mimaki CJV300 printer/cutter.
Based in the Dublin area, Addprint Ltd is a company that has excelled in the cosmetic PoS market and the recent Irish Print Awards has seen the company rewarded for its outstanding print performance. The cosmetic beauty box that was produced for Bourjois Paris was created by printing the exterior of the box with its recently acquired Mimaki CJV300-160 printer-cutter and Managing Director, Robert Doyle explains the reason for the purchase; “Our choice to invest in the Mimaki CJV300 was threefold. The quality of the print is exceptional and we need that guarantee because a large amount of the work we do is close-up Point of Sale displays. The CJV300 also gives us great colour vibrancy and the colour matching from one print to another is superb which is crucial for the bright colour consistency required with cosmetic brands. We also wanted a printer that was easy to use. Our previous solvent printer required two people to load & unload but the new Mimaki CJV300 is a one man job and we can leave it unattended, which makes great business sense.”
The Mimaki CJV300 was supplied by authorised Mimaki reseller Reprocentre, who were also involved in the Irish Print Awards through sponsorship of one of the categories, as Sales Director Eoin Honan describes; “We think it’s important to celebrate and support the printing industry in Ireland and have been sponsors of the Large Format Digital Printer of the Year award for some time, so we were delighted that one of our own customers had won an award; it’s well deserved and Addprint has produced some impressive stuff.”
Winning an Irish Print Awards isn’t the only excitement within the ranks at Addprint; “We’ll shortly be moving to a new ‘Digital Print House’,” reveals Doyle. “We’ve been working on our new premises since last year and soon we’ll be able to showcase the many fantastic Point of Sale materials and products we can supply. It’s an exciting time for the company.”
Further information about Addprint is available via its website www.addprint.ie and its Twitter account @addprint_ie. Further information about Reprocentre and its products and services can be found at www.gpmi.ie