Fast Edit opts for Komori’s ink-jet B2+ and Valiani’s Omnia to acquire new customers

Published in Italia Publishers n. 08/2020

Fast Edit opts for Komori’s ink-jet B2+ and Valiani’s Omnia to acquire new customers

On the strength of digital and offset printing technologies, the Italian printer bets on ink-jet printing and automated digital cutting to hit the big time in the packaging industry

Contrary to the vast majority of printing works, just-in-time production has never been a bit of a stretch for Fast Edit. The company was founded in 1993 in Acquaviva Picena, on the Adriatic coast of the Marches, where Enio Gabrielli started to run a print shop together with two partners. Without any hands-on experience whatsoever, the three businessmen purchased their first two-tone offset press, a 70×100-format Aurelia, and threw down their gauntlet to the market: guaranteeing a fast service in print production.

At the beginning, prepress and bookbinding were outsourced to an external supplier, but Gabrielli and his members endured the long period of plates procurement and finishing processes. Thus, in 2000, Fast Edit introduced the CtP, and the following year inaugurated a bookbinding department. Volumes had nonstop growth, to the extent that in 1997 the company purchased a 50×70 Heidelberg Speedmaster, and in 2005 an eight-colour 70×100-format Speedmaster. The latest addition, in 2012, was a five-colour Speedmaster with divalent spreader, allowing it to make traditional varnishing and UV. In the same year, Fast Edit introduced digital printing, first and foremost a Xerox iGen4. Then, in 2015, it widened the department by installing a Xerox Color 1000i, replaced by a Xerox Iridesse in 2020. The ever-increasing rise in production capacity has enabled the company to achieve a turnover of 2,3 million euro (2019), with a team made up of 20 employees. At the very beginning of 2020, Fast Edit opened new premises, totally dedicated to digital printing services, within the former Ascoli Piceno’s Mondadori paper mill. It is here where Fast Edit installed the Komori Impremia IS29 digital printing machine and a computerized digital cutting plotter, Valiani’s Omnia, respectively in April and September of last year. 

Automated workflow and valuable technological choices

Fast Edit processes, performs and delivers, on average, about fifty jobs every day offering its customers delivery times that can be as short as a few hours. To ensure the highest reliability and reduce downtime, the company has always invested in state-of-the-art technologies. Customers files are processed by the management system using the Heidelberg Prinect workflow, which handles the pre-flight, manages the colour and prepares the settings. Depending on the quantities, delivery times and the availability of the equipment, work is sent to the offset prepress, which prepares the plates, or directly sent to the front ends of the digital printing machines. The company’s finishing department hosts bending, creasing systems, Horizon three-sided trimming, Mueller Martini saddle stitched staplers, Heidelberg folding machines, GMP couplers and a Polar paper cutter. 

Komori’s Impremia IS29 and Valiani’s Omnia’s choice

First and foremost, the company’s staff has analysed the digital printing technologies suitable for both commercial printing and for packaging work, narrowing it down to just a few B2-format platforms. The choice of the ink-jet technology, and the decision to rely on Komori, followed a demo that took place at Komori’s European headquarters. “To produce packaging, you need extreme quality, an extended color gamut, accurate and repeatable spot colors, and compatibility with both paper and plastic substrates, even very thick ones” Cavalieri explains. “We tested the Impremia IS29 with our materials and files, and it met all these requirements, outperforming offset on many fronts.” In the first months of use, Fast Edit has diverted many jobs usually performed in offset to the Komori platform, and acquired new orders on critical materials, such as 600 micron cardboard and plastic substrates. However, the efficiency gained in printing was met with stiffness in finishing.

This is why, during the summer of 2020, Fast Edit evaluated the purchase of a digital cutting and creasing system, testing several solutions. At the end of September, at the inaugural open house of the new headquarters, the company hosted its key suppliers and their technologies. Among them was Komori, that had involved its technological partner for the finishing process, the Italian firm Valiani. It is at this juncture that Fast Edit discovered the Omnia, a digital cutting plotter equipped with automatic loading and unloading of sheets and panels of up to the 12mm thickness. “In the days before the event, and during the open house, we used Omnia for our processes, and we were struck by the machine’s solidity and user- friendliness”, Cavalieri says. “More than just a demo, it was an on-site stress test. Thus, without having foreseen it, we decided to buy one”. Among the reasons that convinced Fast Edit, is the Omnia’s maximum paper format (600×800 mm), which makes it compatible with the most common digital and offset formats, including the Impremia’s IS29 (580×750 mm). Thanks to the automatic feeder and the camera register control, Omnia can moreover die-cut hundreds of sheets, in multiple yields, without the supervision of an operator. To cut a printed sheet, it is sufficient that the prepress department add the appropriate registration marks in the file. “A complex process may even take a few hours, but the setup times and costs are reset to zero. Furthermore, thanks to Valiani’s after-sales support, we are guaranteed constant assistance and consultation for any tools, materials or procedures”, explains Cavalieri. “By means of Omnia we can also die-cut 700-800 sheets printed in offset, thereby delivering the first items as early as a few hours from the order”. Along with the Valiani Omnia, Fast Edit has also adopted the Valiani V Studio software suite, including m3 Art, an array of over 2000 parametric models for boxes and displays.