Managing director Andy Cook said: “This is absolutely ideal for us from both an R&D point of view and a manufacturing perspective. We have been looking to buy for a couple of years but couldn’t find anything suitable.” FFEI moved into its current 6,100sqm headquarters in 2008 on a five-year lease, following a period spent at a temporary premises after its former site was destroyed by the 2005 Buncefield oil depot explosion. The lease is due to expire in September and Cook said that he anticipated the business would move into its new home, which is on the same industrial estate as FFEI’s current premises, by the end of July. Cook said: “When we couldn’t find a suitable site, we were going to have to invest a lot on the current one to prepare it for the manufacturing of our new inkjet products, but now we can spend that money as part of our new building and kit out.” Cook said the new site, which at 2,972sqm is less than half the size of its predecessor, was situated next to a series of short-term lease facilities, which “we are likely to use as we expand”. As part of the move FFEI will transfer its research and development and manufacturing divisions across as well as its CTP production facility, although Cook said this would be “a little smaller”. “CTP is still very important to our business at the moment. I would expect there to be around four or five years of life in that range yet.” Cook confirmed that the £10m-turnover company had undergone a restructure at the end of 2012 when it ceased development work for Fujifilm’s XMF software products. As such, he said that the company no longer employed its “large, contracted software development team” and therefore did not require the additional space in its new facility for that area of work. PrintWeek understands that a further restructure in recent months has resulted in a number of redundancies at the company bringing the current core headcount to 110. Cook confirmed the workforce number and said that FFEI’s refocusing on the label and packaging market had “triggered some difficult departures in our commercial print group (CTP)”. He confirmed that manufacturing capacity had been reduced by six while job losses in the CTP development team would probably be limited to three and one from the CTP sales force. Meanwhile he said that the company had recruited three new roles to its sales and marketing group, one in its Life Sciences division and was currently recruiting for a UK direct sales person for digital print. Going forward Cook said that he was cautiously optimistic: “Last year was very difficult for everybody...

Managing director Andy Cook said: “This is absolutely ideal for us from both an R&D point of view and a manufacturing perspective. We have been looking to buy for a couple of years but couldn’t find anything suitable.” FFEI moved into its current 6,100sqm headquarters in 2008 on a five-year lease, following a period spent at a temporary premises after its former site was destroyed by the 2005 Buncefield oil depot explosion. The lease is due to expire in September and Cook said that he anticipated the business would move into its new home, which is on the same industrial estate as FFEI’s current premises, by the end of July. Cook said: “When we couldn’t find a suitable site, we were going to have to invest a lot on the current one to prepare it for the manufacturing of our new inkjet products, but now we can spend that money as part of our new building and kit out.” Cook said the new site, which at 2,972sqm is less than half the size of its predecessor, was situated next to a series of short-term lease facilities, which “we are likely to use as we expand”. As part of the move FFEI will transfer its research and development and manufacturing divisions across as well as its CTP production facility, although Cook said this would be “a little smaller”. “CTP is still very important to our business at the moment. I would expect there to be around four or five years of life in that range yet.” Cook confirmed that the £10m-turnover company had undergone a restructure at the end of 2012 when it ceased development work for Fujifilm’s XMF software products. As such, he said that the company no longer employed its “large, contracted software development team” and therefore did not require the additional space in its new facility for that area of work. PrintWeek understands that a further restructure in recent months has resulted in a number of redundancies at the company bringing the current core headcount to 110. Cook confirmed the workforce number and said that FFEI’s refocusing on the label and packaging market had “triggered some difficult departures in our commercial print group (CTP)”. He confirmed that manufacturing capacity had been reduced by six while job losses in the CTP development team would probably be limited to three and one from the CTP sales force. Meanwhile he said that the company had recruited three new roles to its sales and marketing group, one in its Life Sciences division and was currently recruiting for a UK direct sales person for digital print. Going forward Cook said that he was cautiously optimistic: “Last year was very difficult for everybody...

Sales director Mike Hurst, whose previous roles within the specialist inkjet printing firm include sales channel development director and product director, will head a national team of area and regional managers as well as business development and key account managers. Hurst said he would initially focus on building a clearer understanding of the UK market and the sectors and customers the company serves. He added: “We know that for many of our customers coding is a necessity and not something they see as part of their core business, and so it is important to them that the coding is as automated and seamless as possible. “We also understand that many of our customers are under pressure, both internally and from external competitors. Therefore they need solutions that boost efficiency and enable them to remain competitive both in the UK and overseas.” Ian Cockett meanwhile, Domino’s new UK service manager, is heading the firm’s team of field-based service engineers, as well as the technical team based at the company’s Cambridge headquarters. Joining from Bosch UK, Cockett is implementing a new system of customer training through Domino service engineers to enable them to fix basic technical issues without the need for an engineer. He is also charged with improving focus on customer needs on their initial contact with the company. Domino UK general manager Will Edwards said: “The appointments of Mike and Ian will help us move to the next level in terms of offering our customers the best possible service in a challenging and demanding environment, not just when a customer installs one of our products, but all the way through that product’s lifecycle.” In March, Domino revealed in its interim management statement that overall sales across its core business had increased by 11% year-on-year in the four months to February 2013, with equipment and consumables growing 9% and spares and service revenue up 13%. Its performance has been hampered however, by the performance of North American egg coding and traceability business TEN Media, in which Domino invested $50m (£33m) in 2011. The company said in its statement that it would not be committing further capital at that time, although remained supportive of the venture. Its outlook for Europe was also cautious although the company was confident in the future of its N600i colour inkjet label press, the first of which was sold in January, as well as its K600i black and white overprinting system....

The 35-staff Luton-based company, which used to be called White Knight 360, traded back a 13-year-old Xeikon DCP/50D digital colour press to upgrade to one of the latest models, which cost around £300,000. “Things have come a long way in that time,” said managing director Lawrence Palmer. “The weights of stock that we can work with, the colour control we have on the new system, and the vastly superior resolution make this impressive equipment.” With a focus on point-of-sale production, the ability to produce work up to B2 in size – and virtually any length of print – “set the Xeikon digital print engine apart from the vast majority of machines on the market”, he said. “We reviewed the market again but could find nothing to compete on the price-performance package. When you are producing POS product for the retail industry, especially fashion, you have the most colour-conscious customers in the world. They demand only the best.” Xeikon 6000 is targeted at producers of graphic arts, direct marketing and sophisticated web-to-print applications. The press handles substrates up to 350gsm and offers 1,200dpi and is compatible with a wide range of print media and formats. The kit runs at up to 160ppm. Work for WK360 includes POS material for large retail chains, fashion and home furnishing specialists, with runs pushing into several hundreds. Palmer said the kit’s capabilities and FA toner really helped meet expectations of such a “colour-critical market”. Print services director Amanda Gatward said: “We scoured the market and decided there was nothing that could compete on versatility and size. We do lots of large-format point-of-sale material, and A2 posters for pubs takes up quite a large slice of our work.” Xeikon business development manager for document printing Danny Mertens said: “It’s good to be able to please a market so colour critical as the fashion market. This is the very best of evidence for any other prospective purchaser of digital printing equipment.”...

Sales director Mike Hurst, whose previous roles within the specialist inkjet printing firm include sales channel development director and product director, will head a national team of area and regional managers as well as business development and key account managers. Hurst said he would initially focus on building a clearer understanding of the UK market and the sectors and customers the company serves. He added: “We know that for many of our customers coding is a necessity and not something they see as part of their core business, and so it is important to them that the coding is as automated and seamless as possible. “We also understand that many of our customers are under pressure, both internally and from external competitors. Therefore they need solutions that boost efficiency and enable them to remain competitive both in the UK and overseas.” Ian Cockett meanwhile, Domino’s new UK service manager, is heading the firm’s team of field-based service engineers, as well as the technical team based at the company’s Cambridge headquarters. Joining from Bosch UK, Cockett is implementing a new system of customer training through Domino service engineers to enable them to fix basic technical issues without the need for an engineer. He is also charged with improving focus on customer needs on their initial contact with the company. Domino UK general manager Will Edwards said: “The appointments of Mike and Ian will help us move to the next level in terms of offering our customers the best possible service in a challenging and demanding environment, not just when a customer installs one of our products, but all the way through that product’s lifecycle.” In March, Domino revealed in its interim management statement that overall sales across its core business had increased by 11% year-on-year in the four months to February 2013, with equipment and consumables growing 9% and spares and service revenue up 13%. Its performance has been hampered however, by the performance of North American egg coding and traceability business TEN Media, in which Domino invested $50m (£33m) in 2011. The company said in its statement that it would not be committing further capital at that time, although remained supportive of the venture. Its outlook for Europe was also cautious although the company was confident in the future of its N600i colour inkjet label press, the first of which was sold in January, as well as its K600i black and white overprinting system....