High-quality, high-speed, 5-meter roll-to-roll LED inkjet printing has expanded Prismaflex’s client and trade business, enabling the company to produce more work with the same staffing level
Founded in 2000 and now with about 50 employees operating in a 35,000 square foot factory, greater Toronto area-based Prismaflex Canada, a subsidiary of French company Prismaflex International and one of the largest providers of display graphics printing in Canada, produces a wide range of display graphics products – from point of purchase materials and backlit signs to wall coverings, interior décor, indoor and outdoor signage and more – and produces work for its clients as well as for the trade. Prismaflex recently acquired an EFI™ VUTEk® 5r+ roll-to-roll LED inkjet printer from Electronics For Imaging, Inc., to update their production fleet and boost their productivity.
“Our production platform consisted of several smaller printers, a latex printer, a flatbed and three 3-meter VUTEks,” says Stéfane Comeau, Prismaflex Vice President. “We also had an aging 5-meter printer that was no longer being supported by the manufacturer that we needed to replace. We couldn’t get parts for it anymore, and in doing our due diligence, we saw that the quality and speed of 5-meter display graphics printers has improved considerably.”
Reliability, productivity, and unmatched service
Comeau notes that Prismaflex has been a long-time EFI customer, both in Canada and worldwide, adding, “We print 16 hours per day, five days a week, and we needed a reliable printer that would print the same quality from the first to the 80th hour of the week. And from our experience, VUTEk [printers] is the leader in both quality and reliability.”
The 5.2-meter (205-inch) wide EFI VUTEk 5r+ roll-to-roll LED inkjet printer was a natural choice for the team. Capable of handling a wide variety of flexible substrates, it offers a better speed/quality ratio than other printers in its class with production speeds up to 5,242 square feet per hour and true resolution up to 1200 dpi. It features EFI UltraDrop™ Technology and native 7-picoliter grayscale printheads that deliver high apparent resolution and high-definition print quality; outstanding smoothness in shadows, gradients, and transitions; and superb text quality. Its advanced LED curing technology significantly reduces the amount of energy consumed compared with traditional UV or latex printers.
“The addition of the new printer has allowed us to keep our existing 5-meter clients happy by increasing our production capacity and lowering our production times, and has enabled us to increase our capacity for future business.”
