Chesterfield firm Whittington Moor is to double booklet and brochure production capacity following the installation of a Horizon StitchLiner from IFS.

Paul Gamble who recently headed a management buy-in of the 80-year old business that provides commercial print, business stationary & direct mail for local and regional operations, explains: “We had an old Horizon SPF/FC-20a but were sending out production of 40 page booklets and that was costing as much as £3,000 per month.”

He adds: “It was time to upgrade the system and it made sense to bring some processes in house to make us more profitable and retain greater control on turnaround times.”

Mr Gamble looked at a second-hand Horizon StitchLiner and then saw the system in operation at the recent Real Print and Finish event in Hemel Hempstead. Successful application for a £12,000 Regional Growth Fund helped with the purchase.

“The fact it takes a flat sheet and stitch, folds and trims in one pass makes for much smoother and faster production. A lot of what we did before had to be collated on one tower and that was very time consuming,” adds Mr Gamble. “It will double our capacity, reduce our outsourcing costs and as a result we expect return on investment in 15 months.

“The main thing is we don’t have to fold everything separately with the StitchLiner. Also whereas before we would have to trim the top and bottom we don’t have to now and that has resulted in a significant reduction in guillotining. That has reduced our manpower and turnaround times.”

Whittington Moor’s Horizon StitchLiner will complete litho print from a B2 Ryobi 755, a five-colour, a five-colour B3 Ryobi 525, and a Formall Edelmann four-colour reel-to-sheet press and digital print from a Xerox Versant, Nuvera and 770.

The fully-automated 11,000bph Horizon StitchLiner includes a high profile icon-based colour touchscreen for set-ups in less than two minutes.