Unwavering Passion On our journey to visit the FaberExposize UK team in Leeds and gain a sneak peak behind the doors of production, we didn’t know what to expect. Having met managing director Iain Clasper briefly at the VM & Display show prior, we knew we’d be in for a warm welcome and we weren’t let down as he took us for a tour of the site, imparting his knowledge on all things sublimation and textile printing. Clasper’s passion for the business and enthusiasm were clear as we peppered him with questions along the way, fascinated by the variety and sheer size of the kit housed in the company’s HQ. Upon entering the building, you are met with a range of applications and it’s easy to see from even the untrained eye the quality of the printed products. Having been around for about 35 years, FaberExposize UK originally started off as a flag company (Northern Flags) and is part of the FaberExposize network which means the company shares a lot of resources with other sites in Poland, the Netherlands, and Bangkok. This gives the business a unique post-Brexit opportunity for its customers as it is able to produce on-shore, lowering the carbon output and enabling greater accuracy. Having moved from being solely a flag company to a full display company with UV and dye-sub capabilities, FaberExposize UK is arguably one of the most modern print facilities in the UK in terms of its fleet of printers. This fleet is certainly being put to work with the volume of products produced at the site including print for construction such as heras banners and dibond for new home developers, as well as banners, flags, and graphics for events and sport, and retail. “We’re quite lucky in that we’re not dependant on one particular category of business,” explains Clasper who joined the business 12 years ago with no prior knowledge of the industry. This is something he says was an advantage due to him asking a lot of questions in the early days. Over this time, the company has gone from a sales office for the other FaberExposize print operations to probably the largest producing factory within the group. One of the steepest changes Clasper has experiFrom a steady stream of awards and hiring the next generation of rising stars, to a rock solid sustainability mission, we visited FaberExposize UK to find out what has been going on behind the doors of its Leeds HQ in recent months enced is the move from screen printing onto fabrics to digital printing. “The technology is radically different now and I think it was probably an advantage for me knowing absolutely nothing about print, be it screen print or digital, I just kept asking ‘why, why, why?’ We were quite early adopters in the digital fabric space and I think that’s put us in a really strong position for now.” Inclusivity And Diversity Something that stands out about FaberExposize, be it seeing the team at events or reading about the many awards it has now collected over the past few years, is the diversity of the company and its positive culture. This is present in the form of a 70/30 split of women and men in the company, as well as having a range of ethnicities within the team, and a high amount of young people. This isn’t something that has been intentional and Clasper describes it as having been very much meritocracy, but he says the company has been very fortunate with the kind of people it has recruited. “We’ve always looked to recruit a team of print operators who really share that passion. They’re not just there to ‘bish bosh’ it out. You met some of the guys today, and I think you can feel that. We’ve been really fortunate with who we’ve found. They’re really energetic, really passionate, and really want to grow. “We like to give people a bit of rope and see what they make with it and I think we’ve been hiring a lot of people who’ve really been ambitious and we’ve been allowing ▲Iain Clasper, managing director of FaberExposize UK COMPANY SPOTLIGHT / FABEREXPOSIZE UK 24 Issue 249 - October / November 2023 www.signlink.co.uk We’ve always looked to recruit a team of print operators who really share our passion. They’re not just there to ‘bish bosh’ it out. We’ve been really fortunate with who we’ve found. They’re really energetic, really passionate, and really want to grow
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjM0NDIxOA==