The Bright Print Group (BPG) is expanding into the thriving wide format market with a half million dollar investment in new equipment from Agfa Graphics.
“We’ve invested more than half a million dollars in several new machines and they will be installed next week,” said Debbie Burgess, director of Sydney-based BPG, which also has a printing facility in Newcastle. “Previously we had outsourced the wide format work for our customers but the demand keeps growing and for some time clients have been pushing us to make the move into wide format for ourselves. The new equipment will position us at the higher end of the market.”
Burgess is reluctant to identify the machines until they’re up and running. “I’d rather not say anything more at this stage other than to confirm we’ve made several large purchases."
It's understood the package includes an Anapurna M2500i hybrid wide-format printer from Agfa Graphics.
Meanwhile, BPG achieved Mellow Colour ISO 12647-2 Proficient Printer certification through Colour Graphics Services, Australian region distributor for the Mellow Colour software suite.
Since 2011, Colour Graphic Service’s David Crowther has been attending to colour standardisation for BPG but with new presses both at Wetherill Park and Mayfield West in Newcastle, the time came for official ISO 12647-2 certification. This has now been granted following a week’s testing and measuring.
“Our main goals were to match colour across all machines over our two sites and to ensure consistently high quality printed results,” said BPG managing director John Bright. “It has been a gradual process but we are now a certified ISO 12647-2 ‘Proficient Printer’ and have the tools to keep it that way.”
Two locations now service the needs of BPG’s customers - the spacious Wetherill Park headquarters and the revamped Newcastle site which relocated in 2013 into a purpose-built and environmentally sustainable new building at Mayfield West.
“We have looked to enhance our offering to market about every three or four years, whether that be via acquisition of existing businesses or new equipment for entering new markets,” said Bright. “Our last acquisition was Print National in 2013. Before then, in 2011, we merged Newcastle Camera Print into the group, which extended our reach to the second largest city in NSW and the dynamic Hunter region.”
David Crowther, the Colour Doctor, performed calibrations using Mellow Colour’s PrintSpec software to identify where adjustments were needed. He worked on the Screen PTR-8600 and 8800 computer-to-plate setters, four Epson proofers running Screen LabProof colour management software, a Komori LS1040P ten-colour press and a Heidelberg XL75 five-colour with coater, which came along with the Print National acquisition.
Crowther followed-up the ISO certification by conducting a training session. Taking an engineering-approach to colour, he explained that the process of measuring and controlling the many variables in offset printing, such as ink, paper, pressures, water, blankets, humidity, temperature and mechanical movement, allows for predictability and consistency. He compares measuring colour and analysing results with PrintSpec to: “monitoring respiration, blood pressure and heartbeat in medicine.”
Bright Print purchased its own copy of Mellow Color’s PrintSpec colour analysis and reporting software, which will enable the company to produce its own ISO 12647-2 profiles
BPG managing director John Bright is the fourth generation for the firm, which has origins going back to the 1960s. Even before then, William John Bright, the great-grandfather of John and his sister Debbie - also a director of the business - had established a Linotype setting business in 1928 at nearby Fairfield.