Norwich-based CIM Signs and Graphics has employed five more people after a £54,200 grant from the LEP’s Growing Business Fund enabled it to buy a SwissQprint Nyala 4 that since its installation at the start of April has helped the company’s turnover jump 15% month-on-month.
MD Mark Baker said the new machine – CIM’s “first flatbed, and largest and fastest costliest machine” – “has already increased our productivity and turnover to the level where we’ve been able to take on a new person in general production, a specialist finisher, a designer and installer, plus an apprentice.”
Baker, who started the funding application process in December 2021, said “the grant meant I could look for something bigger than the 3m Agfa machine I had been looking into. The Nyala 4 lets us print materials up to 3.2m wide and rolls of any length, opening up new work opportunities and enabling us to bring previously outsourced job in-house. We are now handling wider-width banner and printing onto some textiles that we couldn’t handle before. Plus, the speed is remarkable.”
The company, which also bought a sewing machine from the grant, has grown throughout the Covid period and had a turnover of £1.4m in 2021. It now has a staff of 24 and Baker anticipates further expansion.
