Derbyshire-based wide-format specialist MX Display has installed an EFI Vutek FabriVu 340i and a High Roller Carousel storage solution, both purchased via CMYUK.
The company first branched out into digital textile printing a decade ago. It initially outsourced the service but, upon realising the potential of the market, soon invested in a pair of Mimaki JV5 machines. Managing director Adrian Rushton expanded, ‘They’ve both done a good stint and have been great assets, but the market has changed, our volumes have increased and turnaround times have decreased.’
Prior to the outbreak of the pandemic MX Display was targeting significant growth in areas including corporate interiors, fabric wallcoverings and commercial environments. The main challenge was the quick turnaround times demanded by customers, with the Vutek eventually bought to resolve these difficulties.
The 3.4m roll-to-roll textile printer has inline fixation, allowing users to print direct to fabric and sublimate within a single operation. The inline sublimation can also be turned off, allowing for paper transfer printing that can be fixed through use of a standalone calendar press.
‘The increased volume, speed and capacity that the FabriVu 340i gives us has future-proofed the business certainly for the next few years,’ explained Mr Rushton. ‘The inline finishing was key for us because up until this point we had always calendared offline, but felt in order to meet the increased turnaround times, we knew this was the way to go – to turn a two-part step into a single process for the majority of the standard display fabrics that we use.’
The increased output provided by the Vutek meant that MX also needed to rethink its storage operations, particularly with 3.2m wide textile rolls. Enter the CMYUK High Roller Carousel, which is able to store and recover roll material efficiently and ergonomically, removing the need for any manual handling or time wasted searching for rolls that always seem to be at the bottom of a pile. It is designed to make use of a company’s vertical dead space, rather than cluttering up the floor space. The model at MX Display caters for 3.2m width rolls to a height of 7m and can hold up to 30 rolls of textiles at any one time.
Mr Rushton concluded, ‘Our CMYUK Carousel has been installed against a wall which once housed a pallet rack. We removed it and redesigned the area, which can now also accommodate a forklift for handling sheetfed products. We couldn’t do that before because we had large rolls of material piled up on the floor. We’ve managed to create a working floor space and give ourselves a really smart looking storage facility. The Carousel is a worthwhile investment that has given us a number of benefits.’
