KC Sports based in Mullingar, Co Westmeath has recently been awarded a license by the GAA to manufacture official playing kits. Established in 1996 the company has been involved in supplying colleges, schools and the corporate sector with everything from sportswear to promotional items.
KC Sports recently invested in two Mimaki TS34-1800A 1.8m wide-format digital printers through specialist dye sublimation reseller I-Sub Ltd. Capable of production speeds of over 30 square metres an hour, the printers have won a number of international awards and frequently receive acclaim for their price to performance ratio.
“Prior to our investment, we were awarded the GAA license so were looking at sourcing the best machinery and fabrics for our jerseys,” explained Eddie Casey – MD of KC Sports. “It was vital that were able to offer the finest quality and properties for athletes at all levels. We settled on the Mimakis as we felt they offered the best value and performance and working with Hybrid Services in Ireland and the team from I-Sub we knew the Mimaki TS34 could take our sportswear printing business to the next level”
Following its investment in the dye sub solutions, KC purchased a Mimaki CJV30-60 integrated printer/cutter from Reprocentre Ltd. “This allowed us to expand our offering to include digitally printed short to medium run T shirts,” said production manager, Paul Treacy. “We were so impressed with our first Mimaki machines so looking at another product from the range made perfect sense.”
A key element of being awarded a GAA license is manufacturing the product in Ireland. “KC Sports is very proud to say that we are an Irish company and all our jerseys are manufactured in Ireland,” iterates Casey. “We are able to deliver bespoke products; across a variety of run lengths at the kind of quality our company is associated with using our new Mimaki digital capability.”
Mimaki has been exclusively distributed in Ireland since 1996 by Hybrid Services Ltd and its Irish support network was key in assisting KC Sports in its investment, bringing digital print production in house and working alongside its resellers. “Customer service and reliability is what any client wants and Hybrid has provided that in abundance.”
Further information on KC Sports’ range of products can be found at www.kcsports.ie. I-Sub’s website is www.i-sub.co.uk and www.reprocentre.ie details Reprocentre’s complete range of solutions.
