The Merthyr Tydfil business has ordered a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 106 eight-colour perfector with all the bells and whistles, including the latest generation CutStar, and a highly automated TH 82 P Stahlfolder with P-Stacker robot.
The XL 106-8P is a like-for-like replacement of a 2018 XL 106-8P and will be installed, along with a fourth-generation reel sheeter in December. It will join a recently installed XL 106-5LX cover press and two XL 106 long perfectors with CutStars, a 2021 ten-colour and a 2019 eight colour.
S&G chairman and managing director Andrew Jones said the new press, which features the latest ‘Push to Stop’ technology, represents incremental productivity boosts rather than a step-change over the four-year-old machine it replaces, so the tax benefits of investing now we’re almost as important a factor in the deal as the technology.
“Obviously it has more up to date Push to Stop and the fourth generation CutStar on the machine,” he said.
“But another reason we have done it is that we have agreed a sellback of the old press, at a good price, and of course there’s 130% super tax deductions [on the new machine].
“[Also] we sell the [old] press and pay 19% corporation tax [from April 2023 it rises to 25%], so we gain 6% on that.”
As a result of the five-colour that was installed earlier this year and the associated ancillaries, along with this latest spend, Jones said the business had a “huge amount of tax allowances available that would reduce our corporation tax bill immensely”.
He encouraged other business owners to measure the tax benefits of investing prior to next year’s tax increases highlighting that for some, like S&G, this would go some way to offset some of the spiralling price increases for paper, consumables and energy.
“Energy prices alone have gone up three times, it’s gone up from £600,000 a year to £1.9m,” said Jones.
“We’re trying to play the market, but it’s difficult because we’re printers not bloody energy buyers.”
However, the straight-line productivity boost, after the business noted productivity dips during the tail-end of shifts, and rapid ROI were the standout drivers for the investment in its sixth Heidelberg flagship folder and fourth autonomous stacking unit.
The new machine will be S&G’s sixth pile-fed TH 82 P Stahlfolder, although it will replace its first machine from 2016 – meaning the business will continue to run five of the industrial folders, four of them with a P-Stacker robot, which stack down the sections off the folder.
“So, the folder operators don’t have to lift anything, so the productivity through a 12-hour shift is massively improved,” said Jones.
He added that each P-Stacker effectively does the work of four people, enabling them to support other parts of the business and offering an 18-month payback for the circa £150,000 robots.
“And they don’t go to the toilet or phone in sick at the weekend,” quipped Jones.
Key to maximizing the Stahlfolder and P-Stacker combo’s potential is the buy-in of S&G’s folding team, added Marcus J Partridge, group director of postpress.
“The folding team have bought into this innovative tech as it enables them to work smarter and they are less fatigued at the end of their shift,” he said.
Installation date of the new folder and stacker is to be confirmed.
The 450-staff business operates 24-7. 56% of its work mix is magazines, 34% contracted commercial projects and 10% is one-off commercial jobs.
While Jones lauded Heidelberg kit as "the best in the marketplace", he said there were no more investments planned in the immediate future. However, he did hint that the group was monitoring digital developments as it was investigating the possibility of adding a digital press next year to produce covers for shorter-run publications “particularly with the price of plates and aluminium”.
“If we’ve got a run of say 1,000 copies of an A5 job, well we print covers eight-up, so that’s 125 sheets and eight plates,” said Jones.
“So, if we could run that on a B1 digital press, then there’s no plates and it’s still two runs of 125.”
