21 January 2008 - Yunker Industries, Lake Geneva, Wis., a leading provider of retail imaging solutions, has significantly increased its digital capacity with the addition of the first four-color plus white Turbo Plus inkjet printer from Inca Digital, one of the world's leading manufacturers of large-format inkjet printing technology. The new flatbed printer offers the same benefits as its predecessor, the Columbia Turbo, but is newly equipped with extra printheads that enable users to incorporate white or two additional colors choosing from light cyan, light magenta, green, orange and violet in addition to the standard CMYK. The Turbo Plus is sold by Inca Digital's distributor, Fujifilm Sericol.

The Turbo Plus system was the perfect solution for Yunker, which had reached the limits of its digital capacity and was struggling to keep up with growing demand. "Being able to run high-quality images at high speeds was our paramount concern," says Vice President of Operations Mike Huckstorf. When the company found that the new flatbed printer also could print white, however, "It was of great interest because we could now run white much faster than using our screen presses, because we could print entire projects on our one Inca flatbed printer. The Turbo's quality and speed were exactly what we were looking for, but having white as an enhancement on the new Turbo Plus is even better. We have already run quite a bit of white, more than I would have thought, because it is there and it works well."

In justifying the purchase, Yunker looked at the increase in short-run POP jobs it was being asked to handle.  "We used to get print runs in the 5,000 range. Now, as business has changed, 500 pieces is a big run, and we don't have the time to waste on prepress and press setup," Huckstorf explains. "With the Turbo Plus handling our short-run screen work, we can take an electronic file to RIP and be printing in a matter of minutes, relieving the load on our prepress department and screen room, and creating the extra capacity we need."

The Inca Turbo Plus also promises to be a big plus in terms of being able to bring work back in-house that the company had previously jobbed with outside suppliers. For example, "Prior to the installation, we were outsourcing a monthly reorder for a backlit promotional piece because we lacked the capability to reproduce the fine images at a sufficiently high resolution," Huckstorf says. "Now that we have the Turbo Plus, we can keep that work in-house."

Yunker is especially pleased that the Turbo Plus performs as specified by the manufacturer. "We're running what they told us we would get, about 1,700 sqft/hr consistently which is about 22 full bed sheets an hour -sometimes a bit slower for fine text, but otherwise we're flat out," Huckstorf says. In addition, "The white is easy to work with for full under- over- and spot printing for backlit materials. It prints great, especially compared with having to print the white offline. The opacity of the white and the ink adhesion overall is phenomenal on a wide range of substrates." For all its complexity and sophistication, however, the Turbo Plus was up and producing at Yunker Industries within three days of installation, a feat Huckstorf terms "pretty amazing. The Turbo Plus is one of the best, least problematic installations I have ever experienced in 30 years of screen printing."

Of the post-sale technical support the company has received, "Inca's Turbo Plus is an extremely tough and durable machine that is already producing higher-quality work at quadruple the speeds of our older digital press lines, even at this early stage," he observes.  Should problems occur down the line, Huckstorf is confident that both Inca Digital and Fujifilm Sericol stand ready to help whenever it may be needed. "We have a longstanding relationship with Fujifilm Sericol through the screen ink business and now the digital side. All their people are knowledgeable and dedicated. And, the Inca Digital people have been extremely resourceful. We like working with them."