BIRMINGHAM, England –– Virtual Literature Management Limited (VLM), an all-digital print shop in the U.K., recently reached the one-million impression mark per month using a NexPress 2100 digital production color press. "To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time in the industry that a digital color sheetfed press has achieved one million page-impressions per month," said Frank Romano, Roger K. Fawcett Distinguished Professor of Digital Publishing, Rochester Institute of Technology. "It breaks a barrier and shows that volume levels are increasing significantly on the digital color side of the industry." "Our goal was to reach this level of production with a NexPress 2100 press, and going forward we expect to exceed it with each of our installed units," said Declan Malone, managing director of VLM. "Our productivity has been aided by the fact that the operator-replaceable components are lasting longer than expected. We believe that early next year, VLM will do at least 1.5 million A4 impressions per month on each of our presses." VLM is an all-digital marketing services company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with an additional location in Birmingham, England. It purchased four NexPress 2100 presses last year, and a fifth machine at the IPEX trade show in April, to offer customers: - Next-day turnaround on every job - Production of 800 to 1,200 full-color jobs each day - Average run lengths of 60, but some as large as 20,000 - Customized and localized printing today, with plans to add full variable data in the future VLM’s Web-based print-ordering system allows efficient throughput of 1,000 to 1,500 orders per day to be seamlessly sent to the NexPress 2100 press. The largest volume customers are in the travel, real estate and financial industries. "VLM has combined its innovative business model with the capabilities of the NexPress 2100 press to create tremendous services for customers," said Wolfgang Pfizenmaier, president of the Heidelberg Digital Solution Center. "That they have exceeded the one million page-impression mark is remarkable for VLM, Heidelberg and the entire printing industry, and yet it’s just one indication of the potential for the digital color printing market in the coming years." About Heidelberg Heidelberg (www.heidelberg.com), the world’s largest print media solutions provider, is headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany, and employs about 24,500 around the world. With over 400,000 presses installed at more than 240,000 customer sites, Heidelberg offers the printing industry's largest sales and support network, supporting an installed base of print media technologies in 170 countries. Today, Heidelberg is the only company in the industry that serves as a single source for both digital and offset printing solutions for its customers. About VLM Founded in 1965, VLM made the transition from prepress to digital printing in 1996 with the Agfa Chromapress. VLM employs 100 people at its two locations in Dublin and Birmingham. Virtually all of the company’s employees are on the production side — prepress, press operation, finishing and fulfillment — and it also has an in-house development and technical support team of eight people with plans to add more.