COVER STORY
Starleaton’s largest Zünd i 1
Starleaton installs two Zünd D3 2XL-3200 machines with BHS150 systems at Billboard Media – the first installation of its kind in Asia-Pacific
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tarleaton, the Australian agent for Zünd, has just completed the installation of two Zünd D3 2XL-3200 machines with BHS150 systems at Billboard Media – the first installation of its kind in Asia-Pacific and only the second time two units have been installed in a single business worldwide. Billboard Media has been a Zünd customer since December 2019 and decided on the investment following a bottleneck in its workflow at the cutting stage. The company currently operate six flatbed printers, four UV roll-to-roll and four latex roll-to-roll printers as well as a host of finishing equipment 6 ProPack.pro June 2021
1. (l-r) Starleaton’s Ben Eaton, Billboard Media’s David Langford and Starleaton’s Dale Hawkins
which includes hot air vinyl welders, guillotines, die-cutters and table cutters. With its six large format flatbed printers running two shifts, five days a week, Billboard Media senior production coordinator David Langford said the business could print jobs within hours, but it would take several days to progress a job through its cutting department. “We had added an auto-platen diecutter and moved a great deal of our carton work onto it but our four existing cutting tables struggled to keep up with the signage and display work,” he said. “We were running additional shifts at night and on weekends, which incurred labour costs that we couldn’t in good faith pass onto our customers. We have a good reputation for fast turnaround times, so we take delays in getting product out to our customers as a failure on our part. That had to be addressed quickly.” The Melbourne-based business predominantly plays in the large format printing space and is primarily a trade printer operating large format digital printers. Its customer base includes anyone who needs printed products –
from small independent signage contractors to multi-national print management companies and retailers. With 65 staff employed, Billboard Media works across a wide gamut of printed products – from banners and billboards to signage, display, posters, promotion, transit and corrugated carton work. It processes materials including vinyl banners, mesh, selfadhesive vinyls, paper, corflute, screen boards, aluminium composite panels, rigid substrates and corrugated boards. So, when the requirement for augmenting its existing cutting tables arose, Billboard Media researched into what was available in the market. “We started to examine the pros and cons of each machine we looked at and ways to improve speed, costs and workflow,” Langford said. “We looked at as many cutting solutions that we could find and gathered as much information as we could on each machine before making enquires. We even considered larger format die-cutters as an option. “We try to understand every aspect of a machine’s capabilities and performance before making a decision. In this case, we narrowed it down to two options which included Zünd. www.propack.pro