Mortsel, Belgium – 15 March 2004 – Dotrix, an Agfa company, announced that the first UK installation of the.factory, its high-speed colour inkjet press is underway at speciality printer Gardners. Gardners, which employs over 100 people, produces various technical and promotional applications including point of sales (POS) materials, signs, labels and outdoor media. Having primarily used screen printing for production, Gardners will use the.factory to meet the increasing demand of its clients to resolve issues of brand integrity. Therefore, the.factory will produce many single items on a wide range of substrates that would have been traditionally manufactured using a variety of processes which have often led to the dilution of the brand in-store. Having worked with various wide format inkjet presses, Gardners has long recognised the value of variable digital inkjet printing to its customers. Says managing director, Richard Gardner: "the.factory is the most advanced digital inkjet press available in the market and the only industrial solution capable of providing high quality results in at least four colours featuring a wide colour gamut enabling very accurate spot colour reproduction." "The press is extremely flexible and able to print on foils, plastics and coated papers. We are also developing our own coated substrates in-house. the.factory's ability to print on such a wide range of materials is of great importance to us and gives us the opportunity to expand and diversify our portfolio." Following the initial testing period, Gardners forecasts a rapid return of investment with the.factory and has already received positive feedback from customers such as major retailers and financial institutions regarding the increasing possibilities the press brings. Gardners plans to install a second the.factory later in 2004. "With the.factory we can now offer our customers and staff the chance of getting involved in one of the most innovative industrial technologies available in the print media market. Our customers are pleasantly surprised about the exceptional screening that results in excellent print quality," Gardner added. The use of UV-curable inks in the.factory makes the printing process ideal for outdoor use. "A proactive company such as Gardners which invests a great amount of time and money into R & D is an ideal partner for Dotrix as we work side by side with our customers in order to further the capabilities of the press. The installation at Gardners clearly spotlights the advances in digital inkjet printing and the way it is used to respond to changing tastes and requirements," said Rob Haak, managing director of Dotrix, an Agfa company. the.factory incorporates the Single Pass Inkjet Colour Engine (SPICE). SPICE uses piezo-ceramic drop-on-demand, greyscale, inkjet technology with inkjet heads from Toshiba TEC. The heads, integrated into the Dotrix's cartridges in the.factory, are able to produce different tints of ink by varying the droplet sizes, thus providing a 300dpi resolution with three-bit greyscale or eight levels of grey per spot. These different intensities combined with stochastic screening result in a high level of print quality at a perceived resolution of 900dpi. Capable of printing 907 square metre per hour at widths of up to 63 cm, the.factory is the most productive and flexible industrial digital print solution available today.