News and Events

You may think nothing interesting happens in the life of a printer - well you’d be wrong! There’s always something interesting happening at Prime. Keep an eye on this section to find out more.

PRIME GROUP INVESTS IN BRAND NEW HP INDIGO TECHNOLOGY
TAX COULD HAVE BEEN TAXING
NOT MORE RED TAPE?
HOT OFF THE BRAND NEW PRESS
VARIABLE DATA PRINTING
CHARITY BEGINS AT THE OFFICE
NEW FACES
SEE YOUR CHILD IN PRINT
NEW EMPLOYEE
HOT OFF THE PRESS

01st July 2008

PRIME GROUP INVESTS IN BRAND NEW HP INDIGO TECHNOLOGY

LONDON, England, 1st July 2008 – HP today announced that Prime Group has invested in an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press, making it one of the first companies to purchase the equipment in the UK.

The deal was signed at drupa, and demonstrates Prime’s commitment to investing in leading technology. Based in Nottingham, Prime has operated a digital printing department for almost five years and has been an HP Indigo press user from the start. The company produces a wide range of commercial products for its blue-chip customers, specialising in complex variable data print (VDP) and unusual short-run applications such as personalised books and high-quality calendars.

Prime’s HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press will be optimised for production by a new workflow solution, the HP SmartStream Production Pro Print Server. This system will enable the company to scale-up production, and facilitates the addition of presses to the centralised workflow network in the future. Due to the large amount of VDP work the company processes Prime decided to invest in an enhanced RIP from HP to ensure that high volumes of data are processed quickly and efficiently.

“Our HP Indigo presses have had significant impact on our bottom line over the last five years and we believe the key to a successful future lies in the continued investment in new technology from HP Indigo,” said Jon Tolley, director, Prime Group. “The new press will allow us to produce more work, at greater speeds and higher quality, but delivering a lower cost per page. It makes perfect business sense to us. Not only can we produce more complex work for our customers, we can also pass the financial benefits down the supply chain.”

The new HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press will enable Prime to move into new markets such as high-quality direct mail and expand its existing portfolio of products in the marketing collateral, personalisation and book areas. The company recently worked with personalisation specialists, Penwizard, to produce a series of personalised Noddy books for HarperCollins on its existing HP Indigo press. The complexity of the data and image quality required to maintain brand integrity was of vital importance to the project.

“Harper Collins and Penwizard have been so impressed with the quality of the Noddy books that they have commissioned three major new brands for launch in 2008. When our HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press is installed we will move these applications to the press, ensuring that our customer is receiving products of the highest possible quality,” said Tolley.

“The company’s continued investment in HP Indigo presses stems from our desire to constantly improve and innovate our product offerings and services to our customers. Prime has won two awards for product innovation in the last year and we intend to use our new digital press to win many more in the coming years.”

The new press will installed later this year to operate alongside Prime’s other digital press, an HP Indigo press 5000.

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01st July 2008

TAX COULD HAVE BEEN TAXING

In April we completed one of our most challenging projects to date: the production of 725,000 tax cards for accountancy marketing consultancies, Practice Track and Mercia Group.

It was our first appointment by Practice Track to produce 435,000 tax cards, which had to be printed and dispatched for the 2008 Budget; the catch was that we had only 5 days to produce the 6- and 8-page full colour tax cards — an incredibly tight deadline — in addition to our contract with the Mercia Group to complete their order.

In order to deliver the projects the company installed a new Autobond Laminator and a fourth Morgana Creaser. In addition to the new machinery we introduced 24-hour printing.

The project was delivered on time and Sue Andrews at Practice Track was delighted with our service: "This is the first time we used Prime Group and I was very pleased with the quality of service they provided. When charged with our largest annual project, astute timing and solid management is paramount to achieving the required result. Faced with such challenging and pressurised circumstances, Prime remained calm and performed the task to a very high standard.”

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01st July 2008

NOT MORE RED TAPE?

On top of the plethora of red tape that businesses across the country already have to deal with, the Companies Act 1985 makes it a legal requirement for your company to state its name (as it appears in its memorandum of association) in certain places and on all business stationery.

Your company must also give certain information on all its business letters, order forms and websites, and every company must paint or affix its name on the outside every office or place in which its business is carried on — even if it is a director's home!

The name must be kept painted or affixed and it must be both conspicuous and legible.

There are several excellent web-based resources that provide more information, including the following:

If you have any questions or would like us to audit your current stationery to ensure that you are on the right side of the law then please get in touch.

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01st July 2008

HOT OFF THE BRAND NEW PRESS

We are proud to announce that we’re one of the first companies in the UK to invest in an HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press.

The deal was signed at drupa in Germany and demonstrates our commitment to investing in leading edge technology. We have been using an HP Indigo press from the start of our digital services and the forthcoming arrival of the new HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press will significantly enhance our workflow and enable us to increase production.

Commenting on the new press Jon Tolley said: “Our HP Indigo presses have had a significant impact on our bottom line over the last five years and we believe the key to a successful future lies in the continued investment in new technology from HP Indigo and to continue to expand our range of services.”

We recently worked closely with personalisation specialists, Penwizard, to produce a series of personalised Noddy books for HarperCollins on our current HP Indigo press. The complexity of the data and image quality required us to maintain brand integrity, which was of vital importance to our client.

Harnessing the potential and flexibility of digital printing technologies will ensure that we remain at the forefront on innovative personalisation. We have recently been nominated for two more awards for product innovation and we intend to expand our creative capabilities; with the new digital press we will be able to build on this success.

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01st July 2008

VARIABLE DATA PRINTING

There might be a credit squeeze at the moment, but rather than heading for the bunkers seize the opportunity and look at ways to make your marketing budgets really work.

Our industry-leading variable data printing technology does just that: stretches your marketing budget further and drives sales.

By using variable text and images, tailored to individual customers, we can produce highly individualised communications, which all adds up to making your campaigns far more effective; and effective campaigns means more sales.

With variable data printing you treat every customer the way that they would really like to be treated: as an individual and not just a number on a database. By communicating on a personal, one-to-one basis encourages loyalty, reinforces positive brand images and drives sales.

With the advent of variable data printing, together with our market-leading applications your campaigns are in safe hands.

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01st July 2008

CHARITY BEGINS AT THE OFFICE

Our studio manager Phil Collier has just about recovered from taking part in the Great Nottinghamshire Bike Ride, which took place on June 22nd.

Of the three ride options (18, 50 and 100 miles) our Phil did the 100-mile circuit from Holme Pierrepont out to Newark and back via Southwell, and in doing so has raised over £150.00, which will be distributed to 5 very worthwhile causes. Phil completed the ride in a very respectable 5 hours and came in 40th from a field of 200.

For more information on the ride please visit: www.nottinghamshire.gov.uk/bikeride , where details of the charities are also listed.

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01st November 2007

NEW FACES

We’re delighted to welcome two new members to the team: Rebecca Hodkinson is our new estimator and Janette Warren is our new accountant.

Rebecca will be one of your first ports of call if you would like to place an order, for a quotation or to deal with general print-related enquiries.

Commenting on joining the company, Rebecca said: “I am really enjoying working with Prime Group.
I bring a lot of experience and enthusiasm to this role and very much look forward to making contact and dealing with our customers.”

Janette is an experienced accountant and is also delighted to be on board: “It is a very exciting time to be joining Prime Group and I look forward to being part of a successful, growing business."

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15th October 2007

SEE YOUR CHILD IN PRINT

One of our new clients, Penwizard, has appointed us to produce personalised children’s stories for several leading children’s characters. Utilising our unique print-on-demand digital process we will be producing books that incorporate the children that will receive the books as a gift.

We won the contract from nine leading UK print houses and the decision to award Prime Group the contract was based on our service, our print solutions, our ability to deliver and our commitment on investment. As Richard Adey, a director of Penwizard explained:

“Our new joint venture with a leading UK publishing house features one of their leading children's characters and this venture will be the first time that a major publisher has entered the personalised children’s book market.

We are now able to produce individual books based around this children’s character and uniquely include the cartoon version of the child that will be receiving the gift, so that they actually become part of the story. It is expected to be a very popular gift and as such we needed to work with a printing house that could deliver an integrated solution – from the time when the order is placed on the website through to delivery of the unique book within a rigid time frame.

After considering a wide range of print partners we found that only the Prime Group could fulfill every aspect of our appointment criteria. The quality of Prime's digital printing was extremely impressive, as was their attention to detail, understanding our complex needs, their ability to deliver a workable solution and being able to offer – in-house – high quality perfect binding, finishing and dispatch facilities.

Jon Tolley and his team have been very proactive and I was delighted to award this very important ‘Print on Demand’ contract to Prime Group, which turned out to be the only company in the UK that could meet all our needs under one roof – a company that I would say is leading the market and unique in the UK. I very much look forward to working with Jon into 2008."

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07th September 2007

NEW EMPLOYEE

Staying with the customer service, we’re also very pleased to introduce Sarah Gillies who is our new customer liaison representative.

For the majority of customers Sarah will be the first port of call with an order, for a quotation or to deal with general print-related enquiries. Previously you would generally have dealt directly with the production team, but with Sarah now in place the speed of answering queries and providing quotations will significantly increase.

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25th August 2007

HOT OFF THE PRESS

We’re delighted to announce that we’re recently installed a new HP Indigo 5000 digital press, which joins our existing HP Indigo 3050.

The new machine, which delivers rich and vibrant colours at the rate of 4,000 A4 pph, more than doubles our capacity. This means that lead times are reduced and that we’re able to offer a significantly improved service.

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