Out with the Old Duplo and in with the New Horizon

Isle of Man quick response commercial print house Words and Spaces made the trip to Ipex to research book production lines and snapped up a Horizon VAC-Turbo/SPF/FC200A system from Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS).

Mark Green managing director (pictured right) explains: “We did some research before we came over and then had a good look around the show… the Horizon fitted our requirements perfectly.”

As the provider of a comprehensive range of printing services on the island, W&S faces unique set of challenges when it comes to outsourcing work – it is especially difficult to remain competitive and responsive when outsourcing work to finishers in Liverpool involves a wait of anything up to six days.

“We had been getting by for a long time with an old Duplo system but, when we added a five-colour B2 Ryobi in the autumn we had a real struggle to keep up in the bindery. The booklet making process was becoming a bottleneck and a headache,” says Mr Green.

“It got to the stage where we were outsourcing up to 20% of our work but now we can bring all that back inhouse which means we no longer have those additional costs. With the touch-screen makeready and job memory storage it will increase our productivity and ensure we can keep up with output of the pressroom.”

Mr Green who also liked the system’s build quality, ease-of-use, speed and productivity:
“Situated as we are an extra day away from technical support it is especially important to us that the system is reliable in industrial production conditions; we did our homework before we came and Horizon received a glowing report from every user we asked.”

Described by Mr Green as a Jack-of-all-trades, Words and Spaces produces work for a wide range of customers including Axa, Britannia and councils on the island.