05.10.19
Precision Digital Printing (Jonesboro, AK) installed an EFI Nozomi C18000 ultra-high-speed, single-pass LED inkjet digital press from Electronics For Imaging.
“I have been in the corrugated business for 25 years and have been around converting equipment my entire life,” Troy Best said. “We knew the Nozomi would be a game-changer for the industry, and we chose to found the company as a print-only business serving the trade, giving corrugated converters products they could not sell before.”
In the Precision Digital model, customers supply raw materials, and then Precision Digital prints the provided sheets and send them back to customers, who then convert them to the finished product.
“This service allows corrugated box companies to outsource to us without tying up capital in the investment themselves,” said Justin Best, who is Troy’s cousin. “The converting houses we have already started to partner with see us as a supplemental resource, not as competition because we don’t do any converting.”
The Bests started Precision Digital Printing last September, with the family spending several months constructing a 100,000-square-foot facility designed to house both the new Nozomi and a second Nozomi press the company anticipates purchasing in the future.
“The building is constructed in a mirror-image fashion,” Justin Best said. “We have loading docks on each side and we constructed a custom conveyor system so sheets coming off the press go right to strapping, are married up with paperwork and are immediately ready for shipping.
“We are just getting production up and running now but will have 20 to 25 employees once we get ramped up,” he added. “We hope to run a second shift within 8 months and be in a position to add the second Nozomi sometime after that.”
Printing at speeds up to 246 linear feet (75 linear meters) per minute, the 71-inch (1.8-meter) wide EFI Nozomi C18000 can produce up to 10,000 35x35-inch (890x890-mm) boards per hour two-up.
Precision Digital’s press has 6 colors (CMYK, orange and violet) and features a precision, single-pass, piezo inkjet writing system providing high-fidelity, accurate color reproduction with consistent, excellent reproduction on solid areas. The press earned a 2018 SGIA Product of the Year Award.