Page 39 - Print21 Jan-Feb 2020

Textile Printing
success situation, with his transfer manufacturing business plateauing as his customers were starting to produce themselves. He says, “We did almost too good a job converting our clients to equipment and consumable purchases.”
Like many successful entrepreneurs, he then went looking for the next opportunity, which
he identified as fine detail work; removing weeding stress; and using water-based environmentally friendly products which are better designed for today’s blended lightweight fabrics and technical garments. That was six years ago, and heralded the birth of Vicon Transfers.
One of the issues facing printers
of heat transfer materials, especially with fine detail, is weeding – or stripping – the waste out of the printed result: for instance, the middle of the d or the o. Until Carroll came along, it had to be done manually.
He says, “It was a pinch point, really slow. So that was the biggest pain for all of our customers who were now producing their own transfer – it was stressful and costly.”
Carroll then developed a
transfer solution with water-based technology, so they touch, feel,
and look the same, but require no weeding. Then over the course of the last three years the company pushed that to the next level, where it merged the screen print technology that it first developed with a digital solution, so it has a full-colour digital capability and the best of fine detail. Carroll says, “In 14 years this is our greatest achievement, UltraColour.”
So Carroll now has the trade business Vicon Transfers, where printers send him the artwork for the difficult or fine detail or small text jobs. Carroll reckons that 90 per cent of jobs that customers receive can be produced by them in-house with their own printers, but 10 per cent of jobs fall into the too intricate / too hard category. It is these jobs which Vicon Transfers handles, Carroll says: “All those 10 per cents mean a lot less stress for our customers and a decent business for ourselves.”
Vicon prints the transfer in reverse to the normal digital transfer its customers would do, starting with the release plastic, then printing the colour and then the white vinyl and glue using an HP Indigo and a screen print machine. Carroll says, “The Indigo is the only digital printer that gives us the quality we want and registration we need.”
Carroll’s system is effectively a hybrid of three processes: sheet
feed screen printing, HP Indigo digital, then a baking line. As far as he knows, no-one else is producing anything like it in Australia. The press is set up in a specific way for the process. Carroll says, “Currie Group has been a great support and partner while we have pushed the boundaries of our HP Indigo to do something they were not aware of.”
The HP Indigo was by far the biggest investment in Carroll’s business life, and he had his house on the line for
it. He says, “I was prepared to back myself, but it was a massive move for us. I started this business when I was 21 and had been successful, albeit with plenty of bumps along the way. This was another step that I just needed to take, it was a leap of faith.”
The HP Indigo went in two and a half years ago, but as plenty of people who have tried to do something new with any technology will tell you, it takes time to get the theory working in practice. In Carroll’s case it was
six months before the first sellable product was coming off the press, which for a small business is a long
“It was close, they say it is darkest before the light, but we came through and had the brightest and biggest growth period that I have ever experienced in 13 years in business.” – Ben Carroll, CEO, Vicon and Velflex
time. He says, “We had some dark days. We were burning through cash. At one point I had to lay off a third
of my staff, which was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. It was in the Christmas shut down period that we realised the business was in its eleventh hour, and drastic decisions had to be made. We had no more cash – more to the point, my wife and business partner actually stopped any further cash flow from the other business, Velflex. We could not let both businesses go down because
of one.”
Carroll hired Johan Eksteen
as a consultant to the business at that time, to help him manage the redundancies, and then to work through production and sales issues. Thankfully that Christmas was the nadir for Carroll – he did make the redundancies in the new year, but the process was perfected not long after, and within six months of that period the company had three consecutive biggest months that it ever had, with a 200 per cent growth within the period. Carroll says, “We now had a
product that worked, that we could sell, and we were driving awareness. It was close, they say it is darkest before the light, but we came through and had the brightest and biggest growth period that I have ever experienced in 13 years in business.
“I can’t tell you how challenging it was. For me and for every one of our team. They all lived and breathed every decision and simply pitched in – those with us shifted roles and wore multiple hats, then worked with everything they had when things got busy. It was our team who got us through.
“We knew the product was right for the market – once we could explain what it was, they wanted
it; we then just needed to be able to supply them, and since then we have had pretty consistent growth.”
Its ability to produce short runs cost-effectively means its customers can offer the same to the market. Carroll says, “This assists with
cash flow, storage and wastage, all compelling reasons for our customers’ clients to order on demand rather than in one large job lot.”
Vicon’s customer list as a trade supplier is growing, as more people become aware of the products and the service available.
Meanwhile the Velflex business has grown to be one of the biggest distributors of heat transfer materials in Australia. It has a
full range of hardware and media, including printers, cutters, and heat presses. The heat presses go from entry level presses for hobbyists right up to the fully automated commercial presses that the biggest brands are using.
The printing industry is going through a turbulent period, no doubt about that, but with the likes of Ben Carroll and other young entrepreneurs creating innovative businesses that provide real value to clients, the future looks bright. 21
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