Printing for a beautiful home

Service is very important at high-quality furniture manufacturer Möbel Rieger, so when it bought large-format printers, it chose Epson.

The company's decoration department is responsible for producing the marketing materials used in its furniture shops, such as posters, flyers and sandwich boards, all in the distinctive Möbel Rieger red. The constant growth of the company, however, led Benno Rieger, manager of the family company, to take a big step. "Advertising materials are key to sales and they help to display the image of our shops in key places. That's why we want to make sure that they are produced in as attractive and economical a manner as possible, using modern digital printing."

It quickly became clear that the gradual replacement of individual printers or computers would be inefficient, so management chose to consult Tobias Weber, CEO of a consultancy firm specialising in printing technology.

"At the start of the project we looked at the situation in all of the shops," says Weber. "This showed us that the shops were using a variety of different printers and software solutions. There was no central database of existing materials for the six decoration departments, and there was no colour management. The graphics files were sent in a non-central manner via email or web services, so it wasn't always clear which version was the one currently being used."

Weber and Rieger developed a comprehensive solution to use SureColor SC-T7000 large format printers to produce all of the furniture company's larger materials. The combination of a web printer and a sheet-fed printer meant formats from A6 up to banners with a maximum width of 112 cm (44 inches) could be printed.

Also, owing to a special large format display requirement in one region, an Epson Stylus Pro 11880 with a printing width of up to 162 cm (64 inches) was chosen for this location. 

Professional colour management is important for Möbel Rieger because all advertising materials used should have the same appearance, regardless of the printing technology used.

The SureColor SC-T7000s use four colours, and the UltraChrome XD ink used in these printers is smudge-proof and waterproof. The Epson Stylus Pro 11880 on the other hand uses UltraChrome K3 VM ink, which covers a wide spectrum of colours with its eight different colours including three blank inks. This means that very striking colour and black and white printing is possible.

Both models offer a maximum resolution of 2,880 x 1,440 dpi, reproducing even large photos sharply. At Möbel Rieger, all large format ceiling banners, wall coverings and posters are printed by Epson printers.

After an analysis of the requirements, the Rieger signed an ongoing Print&Save contract for a period of 36 months including a fixed monthly fee for comprehensive on-site services and for delivery and storage of the agreed quantity of materials.

"Thanks to Print&Save, we achieved the objective set out by the managers at Rieger of making monthly costs calculable," says Weber. Benno Rieger agrees and says that the Epson Print&Save programme has enabled his company to make a saving of up to 40 per cent compared to the previous approach.