EFI has announced that the Branding Division of Trinidad and Tobago-based packaging company Label House Group Ltd. is installing an EFI Matan iQ 5.2m-wide superwide format roll-to-roll inkjet printer with the flatbed option. Label House’s purchase makes the company among the first in the Americas to add this print product since EFI acquired Matan Digital Printers to establish the EFI Matan product line.

Label House, which is located in Caroni on the island of Trinidad, has served the Caribbean market for nearly 40 years with labels, packaging and machinery. The company has also offered signage and display services through its Branding Division for more than a quarter of a century, and the new hybrid flatbed/roll-to-roll printer will help the company meet growing demand for billboards and other display graphics applications.

The printer offers fast billboard production and has additional features that drive value and productivity for point-of-purchase graphics, wraps, banners, flags, wall graphics and window clings, including the ability to print on 5’x10’ sheets. Slitting and roll-to-sheet cutting equipment on the printer save time and increase yields while helping to prevent finishing errors. The patented EFI Matan backlit printing option Label House purchased with the printer is a camera-guided system that automatically detects and corrects front-to-back registration for backlit jobs.

“The EFI Matan printer will bring the number of superwide format printers we have to five, but it will more than double our production capacity,” says Mark Lewis, director of Label House’s Branding Division. “This is especially critical for our billboard work since brands will roll out campaigns to billboard owners in a variety of Caribbean locations, and the billboard owners then send assets to us for production practically simultaneously.

“We need to produce all of the billboards quickly so that everyone receives their campaign materials in the same time window,” Lewis added. “We expect the EFI Matan printer to be a game-changer for us. It is an investment in our future and will revolutionize our customer service levels.”

Lewis chose the EFI Matan printer for its 5.2-meter print width, its flatbed print capabilities, the inline slitting/cutting option and the high-quality results the printer offers. “The width will allow us to produce billboards in a single pass rather than in panels,” he explained. “It will be five to six times faster to produce a billboard.

“And with inline slitting and cutting, we can also use the printer for producing banners and other signage. The flatbed option also extends the flexibility of the printer.”

Operating at production-level speeds up to 3,800 square feet (353 square meters) per hour, the printer also features patented EFI Matan Parallel Drop Size (PDS) technology, which optimizes print quality and productivity by injecting smaller 20 picoliter droplets for fine-detail work simultaneously with 40 picoliter drops needed for other portions of the print image.

Aside from the new purchases for the Branding Division, the packaging operation at Label House uses EFI technology as well, relying on EFI’s Enterprise Packaging Productivity Suite with Radius ERP software to manage production and business operations.

“EFI Matan printers provide outstanding throughput and media handling performance in ways that can significantly improve customer productivity and profitability,” adds Frank Mallozzi, senior vice president, worldwide sales and marketing, EFI. “The path that Label House is pursuing with this new offering in our inkjet portfolio speaks to the ways EFI stays committed to offering the best technologies to help our customers fuel their success.”

EFI announced Label House’s new printer purchase during Connect, the annual gathering of EFI inkjet, software and digital print workflow customers being held Jan. 19-22 in Las Vegas.