Caterpillar caters has both printing and finishing solutions in-house, which include two EFI machines, a GS EFI GS3250LX PRO UV Hybrid and a GS5250 LXR five-meter roll to roll kit for outdoor and indoor signage business. The company also has an EFI Reggiani, a dye-sublimation printer for soft signages, flags and banners.

Nishant Shah, managing director at Caterpillar, said, “There’s a big demand for fabric printing and with the Reggiani running speeds of up to 400 sqm/hour, finishing became our biggest hurdle. Cutting the fabric to shapes and accurate sizes quickly and accurately manually would generally create a backlog. This led us to the decision of investing in a digital finisher which would fulfil all our cutting and finishing needs.”

Shah added, “The new kit will help us eliminate finishing bottlenecks as well as reduce wastages and losses.”

The 3.2x3.2 metre MCT VersaTech2 is equipped with TigerVision, a vision system for accurate scanning and cutting printed graphics built on a single screen software interface. The VersaTech2 is capable cutting aluminium, vinyl/plastic badges, labels, rolled vinyl, semi-rigid plastics, flexible circuits, rolled fabric, rigid boards, plastics and composites, packaging and cardboard materials, structural materials including point-of-purchase, foams of varying densities and thicknesses, and banner material.

Shah explained the reason why he opted for the VersaTech2. He said that finishing and printing are the two primary parts of the whole equation, and both must work together smoothly as a single workflow to achieve the best possible outcome for any given project.  “The VersaTech2’s tooling and workflow software offers efficient productivity and throughput, and can also fully integrate with today’s printer RIPS.”

According to Sam Patel, managing director of Arrow Digital, the Indian representative of MCT, the VersaTech2 is the next generation flatbed cutting solution. “It boasts of a newly designed high-strength and lighter weight beam for unparalleled cutting speeds and accuracy. It’s designed for new levels of performance, allowing full automation and productivity over the entire range of cutting area without compromise.”