A customised packaging specialist based in The Netherlands has succeeded in its quest to find the right single-pass digital print solution to fill a growing need for on-demand production for a growing client base. After failing to find the right machine at last year’s FESPA, this year Doosopmaat.nl was able to place the first order world-wide for the AEG Sprinter bespoke wide-format system which provides the high speed and quality colour that the company was seeking.

Doosopmaat.nl’s investment will satisfy the high quality requirements needed for stylised and customised products and enable the company to incorporate full-colour while maintaining high throughput rates and very fast job change-over. The company’s work with a range of corrugated substrates requires the stability generated through using single-pass print-head arrays with a high quality belt technology to guarantee consistent results.

The AEG 1.6m Sprinter has been developed along the lines of the Voyager Pro series which is designed to offer a rugged, high quality construction. The new single-pass model incorporates the established Kyocera print-heads which deliver the right combination of quality with fine gradients and accurate, solid colour plus the fast speeds essential in digital packaging production.

“For the last three years our customers have increasingly been asking for more colour in their packaging applications but, without a high speed printer, we weren’t able to meet these demands,” states Coen van der Eijk, director of Doosopmaat.nl. “Typically we print short-run customised packaging and, as our clients are now generating more stylised products, we needed the right ink-jet technology to optimise our production, both in terms of throughput rates and in colour quality. We are a very innovative company, making it possible for us to produce custom made boxes at low volumes but at reasonable prices so that we can help keep work in Europe.”

Jos Knulst, director of Doosopmaat.nl, concludes: “The issue we had was that we needed to buy a colour wide-format printer that didn’t exist – until we started working with AEG. Now we have found a bespoke solution that fits our market requirements precisely, and we are able to grow into new territory with the knowledge that we have the AEG brand behind us, and upgrade options should we need them.”

The AEG Sprinter will be installed at the beginning of September, which is a very short delivery time for a bespoke machine. The intention is that it will up and running in time for the large numbers of retail orders that traditionally come in at the end of the year.

Founded twelve years ago by Knulst, doosopmaat.nl is growing exponentially every year and now employs a staff of 17. An important move, made in 2009, was to start selling on-line with a proper eCommerce outlet and this resulted in a very successful change in direction and sales dynamic as most orders now are generated through the Internet. Based near Rotterdam, the company now serves some 3,000 customers per year primarily in The Netherlands and Belgium.

The AEG wide-format portfolio of products currently majors on the Voyager Pro family of printers and Symphony UV-curable inks that are formulated to generate vibrant and consistently accurate colours with good outdoor durability and excellent adhesion onto rigid and flexible materials. The company is also introducing a range of competitively priced dedicated print media which is available in a choice of widths and, finally, information will be available about future planned launches into the ink-jet segment that concentrate on high speed devices, such as the AEG Sprinter.

Founded more than 125 years ago in Germany, AEG is synonymous with high quality products and world-class engineering. The brand has long generated support globally and possesses a superlative background in concept, manufacture and service. Customers can therefore be confident that the Voyager Pro wide-format UV-curable printers and related products within the digital print segment have all been developed to be ‘perfekt in form und funktion’ – in keeping with the time-honoured philosophy of the AEG brand.