Making a decision on what piece of equipment to buy is one thing, but then you have to decide how the finance the thing……………

Below is a quick summary of the main options available when purchasing equipment.
We would be happy to discuss the various options further and to put you in direct contact with finance specialists with in depth knowledge of the printing industry.  

Hire Purchase

Exclusive use of the equipment purchased with repayments spread over an agreed term. T
he full VAT is payable in advance along with any deposit.
Interest is fixed so the repayments remain the same throughout the Agreement.
There is an option to purchase the equipment at the end of the Agreement for a small fee.  

Lease

Exclusive use of the equipment acquired with repayments spread over an agreed term.
An advance rental plus VAT may be required and all subsequent rentals attract VAT as they fall due.
Repayments are calculated to maintain the same amount throughout the Agreement.
At the end of the Agreement you may continue to hire the equipment or a sale can be arranged  

Lease Purchase

This has all the benefits of hire Purchase including the treatment of VAT but has the repayment profile of a lease.

UV or not UV – that is the question   

A lot has been published recently about the “new” UV technology that is being installed in the UK and around Europe with many commercial printers looking at this as an option to differentiate them from their competitors - whilst at the same time making them more productive, reducing overall production costs and increasing profitability.   

The larger press manufacturers have all come to market with their various offerings of UV, H-UV, LE-UV and LED-UV with KOMORI leading the way and working closely with Baldwin in Slough to become the leader in this area of Lithographic UV printing.   

Before making a decision on a new press with new technology The videotape format war needs to be considered – for those of us old enough to remember the late 70’s and early 80’s there was intense competition or "format war" between incompatible models of consumer-level analogue video cassette and video cassette recorders (VCR’s) involving the Betamax and VHS formats.   VHS ultimately emerged as the pre-eminent format before technology moved on again (and again………)    

Buying a new press can be a difficult decision in itself but making the wrong decision on the technology that is to be fitted to it could be very costly in the long term – keeping in mind that until very recently you could still get films on VHS but Betamax has not been available for nearly 30 years.   

Automation has been fitted to presses since the early 90’s and has evolved and improved over time. This, along with new technology in the prepress department, has  reduced make ready times to minutes rather than hours – there is very little room for further improvement in these areas and so the focus has moved from make ready to the speed at which jobs can be backed-up, finished, boxed and invoiced.   

This change in focus has brought about increased interest in press drying systems as a way to further improve productivity.   LED-UV printing is the future. It gives you  

• Instant Drying
• Ability to print on plastic
• No anti-set-off spray
• Reduced power consumption
• A safe environmentally friendly work place
• Spot or full UV coating
• No dry back

At DDJ Graphics we would be happy to meet with you to discuss this technology in further detail.

Service – a word never clearly defined

(not even in the Oxford dictionary)

As the pressure on time and profit margins increases relentlessly the one thing that suffers in the pressroom is the equipment that is the basis of the business itself.  

The company Ford Mondeo is serviced religiously, in accordance with the manufacturers recommendations, but the press that pays for the car and everything else in the business is lucky if it see a cleaning rag occasionally let alone a grease gun and oilcan.  

Routine service is an expense, but controlled and managed the overall annual maintenance bill for a press can be reduced, simply by the fact that the number of high cost “emergency” call outs for press breakdown can be reduced.  
 A breakdown or press problem, by nature of our industry, always occurs in the middle of a very important job, for either a new or your best client that simply must be delivered.   The result is high cost repairs, overtime, loss of control, frustrations, angry customers and (most importantly) a greater negative effect on profitability than routine service would have had.   In addition routine maintenance and cleaning enhances the appearance of the machine and the press run and in the long term increases the residual value of the machine – a positive effect on the balance sheet for a change.  

At DDJ graphics we firmly believe in routine and preventative maintenance. We are now offering Komori, Sakurai and Ryobi engineering service as an addition to our portfolio.  

We are not just offering the usual “service call out” facility, but also health checks, machine reports, compilation of service schedules, maintenance agreements and machine monitoring.

Further details are available on request.

Commercial printer Angus Print in Leeds has just taken delivery of a late model KOMORI Lithrone 28 to beef up its production capacity to meet demand.

This is their 4th Komori press and the 3rd from DDJ Graphic Machinery. This time they have gone for B2 and have opted for the highest specification available to reduce make ready times and increase production.