EskoArtwork and VT Group Make a Partnership that Keeps Growing

The VT Group is not content to stand still. Established in 1966 as VT Graphics, a manufacturer of flexographic plates, the company continues to evolve and expand, and today VT Graphics is now one part of a company known as The VT Group, which also consists of Digital Impact LLC and Ocean Design LLC. Together, these three companies offer a full complement of services for the manufacture of POP displays and corrugated shipping containers, including flexographic design and prepress; negative and plate manufacturing; short run digital printing; and pre-mounting and plotter capabilities. Located in a 45,000 square foot campus in Yeadon, just outside of Philadelphia, the VT Group services Fortune 500 and top name brand companies both nationally and internationally.

No matter what the product or service, the company strives to provide innovative and cost effective solutions for its customers. To that end, the company has continually looked to EskoArtwork to help it meet customer demands for quick turnaround, high quality, short run packaging, and POP displays.

Ahead of the Curve

"The only way to be successful in packaging is to stay at least one step ahead of the competition, and to continually invest in technology that lets you not only meet your customers' requirements, but exceed them," said Robert Mormile, President and CEO, VT Group. "A big part of the reason we have been able to do that is because of EskoArtwork."

Digital Impact houses the group's most recent EskoArtwork acquisition, the Kongsberg XP44 Auto, the first installed in North America. Digital Impact, which focuses on POP counter and floor displays and retail signage, is partnering the finishing table with the company's new six-color UV Durst Rho 900 large-format printer and Drytac laminator.

"The Kongsberg XP44 Auto, working with our new Durst large-format printer and Drytac laminator, has doubled our capacity and boosted our quality in short run production, given us even greater competitive advantage over offset," said Mormile. "Our original Kongsberg DCM die cutters--with their ability to cut a huge number of substrates without having to cut dies--helped move us into the short run arena, generating new business opportunities, With the recent addition of the Rho 900, a 98-inch wide UV flatbed, we needed a digital die cutter that could keep up with its production and handle the larger format sizes. As far as we were concerned, there was only one clear choice--the Kongsberg XP44 Auto."

The EskoArtwork Kongsberg Auto XP44 Auto forms the perfect complement to Digital Impact's two older-model EskoArtwork Kongsberg DCM 24 digital cutting machines, driven by EskoArtwork's ArtiosCAD structural design system. The Kongsberg machines are an integral part of Digital Impact's full digital production workflow for POP displays and short-run packaging, which includes the new Durst printer as well as a six-color HP Scitex FB6700 industrial flatbed printer.

"The Kongsberg XP44 goes a long way in helping us meet customer demands for fast turnarounds of large-format displays," said Mormile. " Like our Kongsberg DCM 24 units, it automatically loads and unload sheets, letting us run the machine without being attended by an operator. We can fit all the parts of a display job onto a single sheet, because of the large working area, which not only saves us time, but cost. We can also work with a lot of different materials--even acrylics."