Advanced Graphics creates expansion opportunities

The company’s new digital printer is giving the power to expand the range of products and services it offers. “When my brother Todd and I bought the company from our father in 2010, we started to evolve from being a distributor to being a manufacturer,” said Advanced Graphics Co-owner Craig Henderson. “By the end of 2012, 100% of our revenues were generated from our own printing operation, where it was only 10% to 15% in 2010. In the last couple of years, we have also gotten more into packaging and that’s when we started seeing the need for something like the EFI Nozomi C18000.”

Before installing the Nozomi, Advanced Graphics’ production platform consisted primarily of flatbed digital inkjet printers. “We looked at a lot of different products on the market that would allow us to expand and grow,” Henderson said, “but everything felt like a downgrade from what we already had – until we learned about Nozomi. It was the very best fit for what we wanted to do and the criteria we had.”

The EFI Nozomi C18000 is especially important for the company to quickly and efficiently produce a large volume of fast-turnaround, smaller-run jobs. It also opens significant new opportunities for Advanced Graphics to grow its business. While the company receives about 5% of its orders directly from consumers, its primary business is work produced for major retailers, such as Amazon, Birthday Express, and Party City.

“With Nozomi, we are able to deliver shorter turn times. In the past we were shipping orders within about a week and a half, now we can ship within 24 to 72 hours,” Henderson explained.“We are also seeing a lot of interest from the trade,” he added. “We can help corrugated converters with smaller orders that they were turning away before. For those customers, we mostly print sheets and they do the converting. It benefits them to have us produce the printing quickly, and they don’t have to turn down that low-volume business anymore.”

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