Cuspal Ltd., a specialist supplier of signage, labels, small and large format print has just invested in a HP Scitex LX600 Latex printer. The company which is based on the Greenhill’s Road, Dublin 24 purchased the new printer to enhance its digital large format output particularly in the area of print quality and turnaround time. A number of years ago Cuspal’s principal business was signage and labels, but as the Celtic Tiger lost its roar, the company decided to diversify into other areas as MD of Cuspal Kevin Williams explained.

“If you go back to the bad old days some three years ago we were a signage and label company,” said Williams. “The signage end catered for new shopping centres which were opening nearly on a monthly basis and these were very large scale projects. Most of the work was outdoors but there was a fair contingent that was indoors such as window graphics, wall vinyls etc. However as we all know now, that came to a sudden and painful end. This also had serious implications on the company’s cash flow.”

In light of this development Cuspal made a conscious decision to diversify away from the building industry and instead target the retail sector which it believed would be the first market sector to come out of the recession.

“The label side of our business continued to be strong, so the first thing we did was to look at that customer base to see what more could we sell to these clients,” added Williams. “Most were international technology manufacturing companies and whilst we were providing a very high specification label there were other components – such as manuals – which went with these products.”

The upshot was that Cuspal invested in small format print in the shape of a Xerox 700i Digital Color Press. This allowed it to produce not only the screen printed face panels, membranes, but also the printed leaflet and manual which went into every box.

“In effect we were now able to offer the full solution to customers and could demonstrate significant cost savings to them as well,” he continued.

Although Cuspal’s main customer pulled out its manufacturing base from Ireland last year, it retained the business and now supplies product into North America, Mexico and central Europe.

Williams said that this then gave the company the idea to look at other new business opportunities and they decided to enter the retail sector.

“Our first investment last year was in a HP Scitex FB700 Flatbed Printer which proved to be an instant success,” said Williams. “Because we also have a light engineering section it was the combination of both print and finishing in-house that allowed us to provide retail solutions which our competitors could not. One example of this was for An POST which wanted to replace all of its outside projecting signs in the organizations 1161 sites nationwide. Each sign consisted of a metal bracket and a printed board. Normally speaking one company would have manufactured the signs and another would install them. What we were able to do was take the design, produce a prototype and prove to AN POST that Cuspal could do everything. In addition because we employ professional project managers, we were also able to inform them every day that we were keeping to the time scale agreed.”

As turnaround times became shorter and shorter alongside demands for higher quality graphics, Cuspal then made a decision to go one step further by investing again. This time they installed a HP Scitex LX600 Latex printer at the end of October.

“The quality of the LX600 is stunning,” continued Williams. “So the difference between what we can now offer and what we offered a year ago is substantial. For example we have just completed a roll-out for O2 with a print management company for the Christmas period and that has all been done on the HP Scitex LX600.We would not have been able to provide such a service within the short time scale allowed if we did not have that printer. The work involved inside and outside fixed vinyls to windows, white printing on clear vinyl, as well as complete internal store displays including the installation of Christmas trees and lights. I can honestly say that for quality, speed and reliability there is nothing to beat the HP Scitex LX600 Latex printer.”

Tel: 00353 (0) 1 463 4400

W: www.cuspal.com

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