The Big Display Company was formed in 1998 with the goal of providing versatile, quick-turn service for any type of large format print. With a wide variety of machinery in its production department in Slough, Berkshire, the company presides over facilities for premium-quality UV, solvent, sublimation, aqueous and latex printing as well as in-house finishing.

A partnership with efficiency and ease-of-use in mind

The Big Display Company needed to improve job nesting efficiency and maximize substrate usage. It also needed a solution the entire team could benefit from and operate with ease.

Opportunity 

The Big Display Company partnered with Tilia Labs to automate the time-consuming nesting processes and maximize time, costs and resources.  

Results 

Using tilia Griffin, a powerful cross-platform, automatic layout solution for large format printing, The Big Display Company was able to:

  • Overcome interface issues with the digital cutting equipment.
  • Revamp the time-consuming nesting processes in both printing and finishing.
  • Reduce production time by an estimated 30 percent. 

THE NEED:

Managing control and delivery with greater efficiency

While banners, flags and board printing are the bread and butter of The Big Display Company, its true service offering is whatever you want it to be within the realms of large format. The company delivers according to need, from straightforward print output to delivery, including “plain label” and bespoke branded deliveries. Its website even offers a facility for customers to build a customized large format product catalogue of their own to offer to clients. Whatever the requirement, The Big Display Company asks for nothing more than the design artwork to be able to process the entire job to completion. 

This level of service brings with it huge accountability. To manage the responsibility successfully, The Big Display Company has to maintain tight control on all the processes involved and their integration with one another. With control as an upmost concern, Arturo Benjumeda, Artwork Department Manager at The Big Display Company, decided to research solutions that could automate time-consuming nesting processes in both printing and finishing to improve job nesting efficiency and maximize substrate usage.

“I wanted one single software solution for laying out and cutting that could work with all devices, so that there would be no more than one set of issues regardless of which machine the products were printed on,” says Benjumeda.

THE SOLUTION:

Crossing platforms, maximizing resources with tilia Griffin

Benjumeda was clear from the outset that his team needed a system that was easy to use. The system wouldn’t be considered a complete solution if only one or two technically seasoned individuals could work it. With the goal of having all 28 team members able to operate the software, the field of options narrowed rapidly with only Tilia Labs making it to the final cut. Through their partnership, Tilia Labs helped Benjumeda’s team test out the tilia Griffin solution.

Tilia Griffin is a powerful cross-platform, automatic layout solution for large format printers, designed to be feature-rich but intuitive and ultra-responsive in operation. The Big Display team was impressed that tilia Griffin is vendor neutral and designed to provide the same efficiencies with virtually all printing and cutting machines. Plus, its nesting optimization engine processes combinations in seconds to find the most cost-effective, tightly-nested layout, whether for a single job or a combination of multiple jobs.

Saving time and simplifying tasks for the whole team

After a successful initial assessment, tilia Griffin was installed less than a month later. Benjumeda was effectively using the system after just ten minutes. Within two days, the whole team was fully confident and getting the results they had hoped for.

“Griffin pretty much does exactly what we expected of it,” says Benjumeda. “It gives us quick and smart layouts, and simplifies the cutting machine cut files from any print device.”

Benjumeda also estimates tilia Griffin helped reduce production time by about 30 percent, especially on jobs where the cut out goes beyond a simple rectangular shape.

The Big Display Company is not resting on its laurels. With customers demanding even shorter turnarounds on the most complicated jobs, the time advantage has already been soaked up by new production demand and deadlines. There is also reassurance for him and his team in knowing that whatever their next equipment investment, tilia Griffin will continue to seamlessly integrate and automate to maximize time, costs and resources.