Norwich general commercial printer Catton Print is enjoying the ability to complete a wider range of booklet sizes in-house and expand into trade work provision following the installation of a Horizon SPF/FC-200A stitch/fold/trim line supplied by Intelligent Finishing Systems Ltd.
“We can complete more runs of smaller booklets such as A6,” comments Simon Laskey, managing director. “We do a lot of that type of work seasonally and now we can meet that peak in demand more effectively.” He adds: “There are not that many trade finishers that can offer A6 booklets up to 80 pages.”
He continues: “We can now also produce A5 landscape booklets in-house whereas previously we would have had to send that out at extra cost and time. We also took a job on that was 15,000 DL that we normally wouldn’t have been able to do.”
The general commercial operation services local and national customers as well as public sector clients including the NHS. It operates a two-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster 52, a single-colour GTO and a Konica Minolta Bizhub.
Ease of set up, increased productivity and flexible production were among the key attractions of the 4,500bph JDF-ready Horizon SPF/FC-200A. Catton Print’s system features a 200-programme job memory storage for instant recall, an icon-based touch-screen for job set-up and two 10-station VAC-Turbo 1000 PowerCollators.
Adds Mr Laskey: “We have a lot of repeat newsletter work and this often is at the end of the month. That was previously a pressure point for us but not now. We can take on extra work too. The two collators have made a real impact. We had one job, twice a month, that we had to put through our single collator twice taking up to eight hours. Now we can do it in just two.”
The patented Horizon advanced suction rotor drum feeding system operates effectively on a wide variety of paper stocks at high speeds. Accuracy and reliability are assured by mis-feed, double feed and jamming sensors on each bin and the feed error history can be monitored via the touchscreen.
Other systems were considered but Mr Laskey states: “We liked the Horizon system and it met our needs more than the others we looked at. It is a high quality machine.”
Mr Laskey concludes: “We are keen to be at the sharp end of investment which was why it was time to upgrade our existing stitch fold trim line. It has made us more flexible and in turn more competitive.”
