Blackman and White is a family owned company; can you give us a potted history of how the firm came about?

Blackman and White was started as a subcontract engineering company in 1964 by my father Les White and his friend Jack Blackman. As the company evolved, my father used this invaluable expertise of producing high-quality machine component parts to design and build his own cutting machine, for a friend who needed to plot and then cut sails for the yacht industry.

Once this machine had been very successfully completed, my father realised there was a gap in the market and went on to develop a whole range of cutting equipment, blade and laser, to be used across different industries. Our roots are in supplying high quality machinery to aerospace, marine and composite companies, and also increasingly, the sign and print industry.

This is a natural fit for Blackman and White. My father, now in his seventies, is no longer involved in the daily running of the business and I have enjoyed the challenge of taking the business to the next level and would like to continue in his footsteps to build a British business that is running successfully in these challenging economic times.

What do you most enjoy about heading up Blackman and White?

Blackman and White works closely with our customers to provide a solution that allows them to grow their businesses—I love being part of that. This relationship we build with customers means that they are always excited and inspired by the machinery we produce. It’s our machinery that enables the transition from a relatively small company, to a dominant force within their own industry.

The natural progression for a print company is to begin with subcontract work and move to owning their own printer. A cutting machine then goes hand-in-hand with the printer. With these two pieces of equipment they are able to generate significant output. To be able to provide a solution and see a company move on to become more successful gives me the motivation to continue to improve our machinery, with the best value for money to fulfil the customers’ needs.

You have designed and created a variety of cutting machines; what has been the most important technical development for Blackman and White?

This is certainly combining multi-tool versatility. The unique benefit that Blackman and White brings to the table is a wealth of experience on processing materials with both a laser and a knife, using a different approach to that which our competitors have had in the past. With the massive expansion in the soft print and fabric textile print, we have seen that customers require a solution that enables them to move away from hand cutting to laser cutting of fabrics, at the same time as blade and router cutting.

The range of Blackman and White cutting solutions are the most versatile in the field, with all the tools that a customer could need. We carry a 2.5kW water cooled router, which means our machines are capable of cutting dense solid materials such as acrylic, MDF and Dibond, as well as being able to handle soft textiles without the problems associated with knife cutting, such as frayed edges and fabric movement on the machine. The integration with the vision system is key to Blackman and White’s foothold in the market, with innovative new solutions enabling the customer to speed up production and improve productivity.

What is next on the horizon for Blackman and White, and what predictions do you have for the future?

There continue to be many opportunities to keep evolving our solutions for the sign and print industries. Printers are becoming faster and higher resolution, and the cutting solution has to match this speed. Blackman and White is committed to keeping pace with technology and our determination to do so is what our customers will value in the future. Our focus is to provide the optimal solution for wide-format printing and the processing of textiles, listening to what the customer needs and evolving the software to make sure that the operator is able to cut efficiently and accurately, in the knowledge that the cutting is a critical stage in the process.