How Texas Nameplate is Thriving in Digital With swissQprint

After 80 years in business, it’s a safe bet to say that Texas Nameplate knows what it’s doing. And we all know the age-old saying: “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

However, there’s always room for positive change — like introducing digital printing to an operation with a long legacy in screen printing.

Started by his grandfather in 1946, Texas Nameplate President Dan Crownover is the third generation of this family-run business in Lancaster, Texas. The 45-employee operation specializes in industrial nameplates, which can be found on airplanes, military vehicles, pumps, trailers, tractors, and more.

While Texas Nameplate typically uses a combination of chemical etching, screen printing, and photosensitive processes for its products — digital printing is now bursting onto the nameplate scene with its swissQprint Impala 5 flatbed inkjet printer.

Crownover explains that while the Impala 5 isn’t Texas Nameplates’ first dip in the digital pond, an upgrade was just what they needed.

“Before we bought the swissQprint [Impala 5], we did have a digital printer that we bought maybe six or seven years prior,” Crownover says. “It was a very small flatbed printer, and it was just kind of our foot in the door in the digital world. And it did us a lot of good. And truly, we just outgrew it. We needed something a little bit more robust, a little larger, faster, better quality, things like that.”

Automation is a Win/Win

Since installing the Impala 5 in August 2025, Crownover estimates Texas Nameplate has been able to move about 15%-20% of their work from the screen printing side to the digital printing side — which in turn has saved lot of time and money.

“Screen printing is very much an art, and it's a little bit longer of a process,” Crownover says. “You need more equipment to screen print versus digital print. There’s this increased savings across the board if you're able to move it over to the digital print process.”

Crownover especially appreciates that the Impala 5 requires little monitoring while printing and consistently produces perfect parts.

“The biggest thing, truly, is the quality,” Crownover says. “What you print off a digital printer, every part is perfect in terms of the nomenclature, the colors, the amount of ink that's put down. Once you get that machine dialed in, you can load it up, and you can really just walk away and let it do its thing.

“With screen printing, the screen might stretch or you might get a little low on ink, or your pressure might get off, or there might be a smudge in the screen,” he continues. “But with the digital printer, every part just comes out perfect. So, that's where we moved up. We were still printing a lot of flexible materials like Lexan, vinyl, decals, labels, with the screen-print process. Now, virtually all of that has moved to the Impala 5.”

Crownover stresses the Impala 5 really couldn’t have come at a better time for his company. He says that while Texas Nameplate wasn’t experiencing many bottlenecks, the number of touch points required for screen printing was causing time and personnel constraints.

“Having this swissQprint [Impala 5] has really eased up the workload in that area and has really helped us get high quality work out,” Crownover shares. “We’re really happy with that.”

Deciding on swissQprint

Crownover says the equipment selection process began in 2023. Texas Nameplate shopped around at industry events such as PRINTING United Expo, eventually narrowing it down to six to eight brands.

Crownover says he and his team were looking for three things when it came to selecting the right printer manufacturer:

1. A strong working relationship
2. A warranty that shows they stand behind their product
3. Ink durability

He’s happy to share that swissQprint matched all three.

“They have a wonderful team. How they go about building relationships, they really do care about their customers, their potential customers, [and] current customers,” Crownover says. “We built some really good relationships with them, and they have good tenure with their staff. A lot of them have been there a long time. We like that.”

Crownover especially appreciates the machine’s three-year warranty. To him, this signifies that swissQprint is confident that the Impala 5 will do what it’s designed to do, and in the event it doesn’t, they’re willing to stand behind it.

For Texas Nameplate, ink durability is critical because the company guarantees its customers products that will last.

“We don't want to put anything out there where the ink's going to come off in six months,” Crownover says. “So, [swissQprint] did a lot of testing for us, including some accelerated weather testing, and they showed us a lot of data showing how the durability of the ink on our substrates, and how effective it was.”

Although the Impala digital press is invaluable to Texas Nameplate, Crownover believes screen printing isn’t going away just yet. Digital inks still lack the extreme durability of solvent-based screen inks. Consequently, Crownover notes that industrial nameplate manufacturers often get left behind in the digital printing world.

Still, Crownover recognizes that swissQprint is actively working to change that narrative.

“swissQprint definitely see that the nameplate industry is not an industry to forget about, and they see that there are opportunities for them. … Maybe I just haven't had these conversations with other digital printers, but swissQprint, they recognize that and are really trying to put a lot of resources into helping us advance,” Crownover says. “swissQprint has recognized there is a market for folks like us that need a digital printer that prints ink that will last.”

“So,” Crownover says, previewing — if or when — Texas Nameplate will move away from its screen-printing legacy, “it's a matter of time.”