Prologica has been able to enter new markets off the back of a $300,000 upgrade in Océ technology.

The Melbourne printer replaced a single-bed Océ Arizona 350 flatbed with a double-bed 550XT, allowing it to bid for work that demanded faster turnarounds and larger sheets, said business development manager David Hamilton.

"It prints twice as fast. More importantly, it has a double-bed size. There's another model that's the same speed, but that only has a single bed. While one bed is printing, it can load another bed, so you remove a lot of the downtime," he told ProPrint.

The company has also increased its maximum print size from 2.5x1.2m to 3.05x2.5m, he added.

Hamilton said Prologica had already profited from firing up the 550XT on 17 August by winning a job that had to be printed on three-metre long sheets.

He said customers had been notified of the upgrade because some had refrained from sending quote requests on jobs they felt couldn't be turned around quickly enough by the old Arizona.

The six-person operation considered other machines, but stuck with Océ because it had a good relationship with the manufacturer and understood the technology, said Hamilton.

"We haven't had to be retrained on what the machine does – it's just far more efficient," he said.