Graphics printing company Category 5 Imaging in Burlington, Ont., recently installed an Esko Kongsberg i-XP24 digital cutting table to help eliminate bottlenecks in its wide-format production workflow.
With 28 employees operating five digital presses in a 1,858-m2 (20,000-sf) facility, Category 5 handles projects from the creative and prepress stages through fulfilment and shipping for retailers, out-of-home (OOH) advertising firms and ad agencies. About five years ago, however, when the company started to receive requests for custom die-cut pieces and short runs, it outsourced the work to a competitor equipped with a Kongsberg table.
“That gave us a chance to analyze what we should do in-house,” says general manager (GM) Greg Priede (pictured, left, with Joel Upham, right). “We added more people in prepress to help feed the presses, but our primary problem was finishing jobs. We needed a new table to get them out the door faster.”
The company is now using the Kongsberg i-XP24 to produce short runs of point-of-purchase (POP) displays, transit signs and other graphics on board, sheet and roll materials.
