Contact Originators completes multi-million-pound ‘super site’ investment
Following a devastating fire at Contact Originators ‘original premises last January, full scale platemaking is now underway at the firm’s new state-of-the-art 32,000sq ft site in Dukinfield, Greater Manchester.
Bringing together the latest world-leading technologies and innovations, the new facility aims to set the standard for integrated and automated platemaking. Comprising three high-tech production halls, contemporary office space and studio, alongside another building housing the company’s new still, the new site offers four times the floor space of the previous facility in Bredbury, Stockport, which was devastated by fire in January 2020.
The still, the largest in Europe, used for platemaking, offers an immense distillation capacity of 24,000 litres, triple the volume provided at Bredbury, and has been appropriately named ‘Goliath’ by the Contact team.
With two fully inline platemaking lines already in place, and a third set to be installed in Q3, Contact Originators is demonstrating its commitment to innovation, right first-time production quality, process efficiency and sustainability.
Contact Originators Group CEO Steve Mulcahy said: “After some fantastic support from industry peers since the fire, we are thrilled to say that, since May, Contact has been 100% in control of platemaking in-house. It has been a tough 18 months, but we have created a fully streamlined, automated facility that meets our vision for what a 21st century pre-press plant should look like.
“With a unique, inline equipment configuration we can support super-efficient, sustainable and highly productive operations, 24 hours per day, six days per week, to provide customers and stakeholders with supreme quality, flexibility and fast turnaround plate manufacturing. By utilising the latest technologies, we are enhancing sustainability across the entire site and future-proofing processes too.
“The new facility incorporates one mile of high voltage cabling, two miles of piping and one mile of network cabling. A 500GB internet line is also installed, providing 10 times the internet speed that the team had previously supporting its new fully digitised, automated and connected workflow.
Mr Mulcahy added: “In the design and development of this site, we believe we have created the best equipped prepress facility in the UK. We are driven by our hunger to do things better; reduce costs/waste, increase quality and boost sustainability. Our focus has always been to create a production site that can deliver flexo plates at the speed demanded by the market and at the same time, providing a superior customer experience.”