An authorised Mimaki reseller for the UK, YPS also supplies consumables, software and finishing equipment for digital, screen and lithographic printing processes. At the core of its offering is a firm belief in delivering unrivalled customer support, and as such has helped another growing business meet its needs in the form of Rapid 9, a Newcastle-based sign and display producer which needed to up its throughput after winning a large new contract.

Although owner and managing director Oliver Whickham has been in the print trade for five years, he set up Rapid 9 to serve the local area's display print needs in October 2011. Now with a workforce of nine providing everything from light boxes to large marketing installations, Whickham needed to add to the Mimaki JV3 on which he built the business to satisfy higher demand from his ever-expanding client base – and has been pleasantly surprised by the results.

"We thought the JV3 was great but we were blown away by how brilliant the JV33 is; it's been running superbly," he says. "We've just picked up a big new contract so the JV33 is running even more work alongside our existing JV3. They're brilliant for what we do and would consider no other machine now: they're bomb-proof!"

This reliability has been important to Rapid 9 but, faced with expansion and more demanding work, time management has also been critical. "Buying a second Mimaki has enabled us to split our work into two divisions," he says. "We can have two jobs in production at once with two members of staff working on them, plus two vans out doing separate deliveries. This has decreased our production time and improved our turnaround, meaning we can win and deliver work more quickly."