Paul Townsend and his wife Judie started The Digimen in Townsville ten years ago in a single-front store on the main street. As the local economy has grown, so has the Townsend’s business and today with a staff of ten, The Digimen occupies three shop fronts from which it provides full design, print production and signage installation services for the local area.
“We predominantly do work for local businesses (retail, tourism) as well as the mining companies, and as the town has grown so has demand for our services,” says Paul. “We realised we needed to upgrade our print capabilities so we could handle the larger workload and still have excess capacity to grow.”
He continues. “We produce a great variety of work and need a printer that enables us to print everything from car bumper stickers and retail signage to large format outdoor banners and construction hoardings. The HP Scitex FB500 is the ideal machine because it can handle anything we throw at it”.
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| Paul Thompson with his new FB500 |
Before deciding on the HP Scitex FB500 (1.6m) Paul looked at the various options on the market, but he says once he discovered the HP Scitex FB500 “we didn’t consider anything else seriously because this machine is exactly what we were looking for – it’s robust, reliable, fast, prints at high quality, is cost competitive and easy to operate. And because of its size, capacity and flexibility it has enabled us to produce work at the industrial end of the market where runs are longer and that has given us opportunities for new business”. The HP Scitex FB500 is able to print on virtually any rigid or flexible substrate with solid ink coverage attainable even on corrugated materials.
The Digimen is a true one-stop shop and Paul says the company produces a range of printed materials. “We produce everything for our customers to make it easy for them so if they need a brochure as well as some signage we can handle the whole order for them even if this means outsourcing the offset component of the job”.
He says business is booming. The Digimen employs three full-time designers as well as a dedicated HP Scitex FB500 operator, “who often I don’t see for days because he is flat out. The machine never has a problem, never breaks down, so we don’t hear any complaints. It hasn’t missed a beat and we are absolutely delighted with our decision”.
Having looked at what else is on the market Paul says “we got a really good printer for the price tag. I can’t say enough about its solid design and dependability. It has quickly become our primary production printer and we haven’t been asked to produce anything it can’t handle including soundproofed wall sheets for a local recording studio. And its speed means we can take on those last minute jobs where we need to turnaround a corflute sign in an hour. Before the FB500 we wouldn’t have been able to meet that kind of timeframe”.
“The FB500 has allowed us to nibble into other areas that we haven’t been able to produce inhouse before. The machine is certainly helping us to grow as we are confident in taking on more work because we know the print quality is excellent and the machine won’t let us down.”
Paul says at times the vibrancy of the colours on the HP Scitex FB500 prints stop him in his tracks. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years and you don’t get thrilled about print quality if it isn’t good”.
In closing he says “reliability of equipment is crucial especially when you are not located in a capital city. We’ve got great confidence in the reliability of this robust machine, but if anything went wrong we have HP to back us up”.
HP Graphic Arts
www.hp.com.au/graphicarts
