Gilson Graphics Adds EFI VUTEk, Fiery and Midmarket Print Suite Products

Gilson Graphics, a Grand Rapids, MI-based company, recently made several new technology purchases from Electronics For Imaging. Gilson’s fast-growing superwide-format inkjet graphics operation now has the versatile and energy-efficient EFI VUTEk LX3 Pro hybrid roll/flatbed LED printer, complete with an EFI Fiery proServer Premium digital front end (DFE).
 
Gilson Graphics uses EFI Fiery DFEs and Fiery Central integration hub software in some of its cut-sheet digital printing operations. Plus, the company is making comprehensive improvements in its company-wide production workflow, upgrading to the latest-version EFI Midmarket Print Suite.
  
In each of the past few years, Gilson has grown 35%, expanding from one shift per day to operating 24 hours a day, six days a week. The company’s strong marketing and customer service with retailers has generated even greater demand for superwide-format graphics, which left the company looking for a way to handle a larger volume of work.
 
Gilson’s new VUTEk printer is a versatile 3.2-meter hybrid roll/flatbed device that can print on materials up to two inches thick in eight colors plus white, and can do multilayer printing in resolutions of true 600 or 1000 dpi. It also features 12pL grayscale print and energy-efficient, “cool cure” LED imaging. The printer’s ability to do both flatbed and roll work at speeds up 3,400 square feet, or 94 boards, per hour, was a major consideration and selling factor.
 
“We began looking at devices that would fit both roll and sheet capabilities. When we looked at them independently we found the VUTEk to be better in certain areas that were meaningful to us, such as the superior white ink capability and the ability to run corrugated at high speeds in flat sheets, which is very unusual,” David Oswald Sr., Gilson Graphics VP of operations, explained. “So we looked at it in its totality and when we determined it had the roll capabilities to improve our current workflow, the flat sheet capability to increase and improve our current workflow, and the ability to integrate from a software management standpoint, those three components drew us to make the decision to buy the VUTEk over others.”