When Wolverhampton general commercial printer Lion FPG won a regular contract for perfect bound books it decided it was time to bring the service in-house with a Horizon BQ470 PUR perfect binder from IFS.

“We won an ongoing contract for PUR bound books through one of the agencies we work with,” explains Nicole Hunt, Lion FPG’s project manager. “This was something we were outsourcing before as the majority of work was small runs. With the new job it made financial sense to invest in a perfect binder. That also meant we were keeping all the costs in house and having control over the production times.”

She continues: “We liked the Horizon because it is easy and fast to set up and simple to operate. It has a robust build too. Not only are the jobs finished quickly but the operators can jump on an off it allowing them to be more productive.

“Because of its ease of use and quick set up it will support the production for our web to print service much more effectively. It has also given us the confidence to go out and sell perfect binding more as a service and we are looking forward to it generating greater revenue.”

It will help Lion FPG also be more responsive to market changes: “It is short run high quality work that customers are now demanding and with this system we can answer those needs more cost effectively.”

The small-footprinted 1,350 books per hour PUR BQ-470 four-clamp perfect binder is ideally suited to mid-range soft back book production with higher production speeds, instant make readies for runs-of-one and interchangeable EVA / PUR glue options. It can bind up to 65 mm (2.55”) thickness and offers fully automated set-up through an intuitive icon based LCD touchscreen.