Route1 Print has made a significant investment in fast turnaround short run production with the order of three Horizon StitchLiner MarkIIIs and a Horizon HT-1000V three knife trimmer from IFS.
As part of an overall summer investment of £4m, the Rotherham trade printer will install the StitchLiners in July. They will be among the UK’s first delivery from Horizon in Japan.
Route1 Print produces litho and digital print on B1 and B2 Heidelbergs and Xerox iGens. There are also two large format HP Scitexs. The new systems were chosen to help launch a 24-hour dispatch service and support fast turnaround, short run book production
Jack Wilmott, Route 1 Print Brand Manager explains: “We want to introduce a 24-hour service and to do that we needed to enhance our short run book production. We need it to be faster and to meet the demand for shorter run work.
The operation will replace a Muller Martini with the three lines. They will run alongside an existing StitchLiner 5500. Says Wilmott: “We made the decision in January about where this cycle of capital expenditure would go. We looked at all the options on the market but we like the StitchLiners. They are easy to run and fast to set up. Our operators know them well so will be able to run them very smoothly.
He continues: “We are expecting to turnover £30m this year and we estimate that the new systems will increase our booklet making capacity by about 63%. They will give us more flexibility and streamline production now that everything is sheet work. We can get work on and off them much faster and that ensures quick and flexible production.
The newly-launched next-generation StitchLiner builds on the hugely successful innovative StitchLiner series. Complete with servo drive technology, the system runs at a maximum speed of 6,000bph and up to 12,000bph with two-up production. It is also capable of producing A4 landscape booklets at speeds of up to 5,300bph.
Equipped with a new large 12.1″ HD colour touch screen it offers enhanced operation with fully automated job set up in less than a minute making it 30% faster than the StitchLiner 5500. There is quicker and more precise knife movement and variable thickness production as standard with new Hohner 52/8S stitching heads.
The Horizon HT-1000V will nearline finish books that are produced on the Horizon BQ470 installed last year. Adds Wilmott: “When we put in the perfect binder it was much more productive than our old one. We were getting a bottleneck in that area. The HT-1000V will eliminate that and help to ensure we are much more efficient.”
