Angus Print expects to achieve a return on investment in under a year on its new Horizon SPF/FC 200L machine that cost over £50,000 and is capable of landscape feeding.
John White, who runs the company with son Mark, replaced an older Horizon model, an SP-20A, a month ago at his eight-staff company with a £500,000 turnover.
“We hope to push up turnover to £600,000 or £700,000 in a year and this new investment will help take us there," said White.
“The old bookletmaker did a million booklets over three years; the new one will do 3 million in one year. We had heard it was fantastic, and it is. It's worth its weight in gold.
“We have twin towers, so we can collate as well as stitch, and can produce 4,000 booklets an hour. I can now quote for jobs for 50,000 to 60,000 knowing I can compete with Mullers and outside finishers."
He added: “The new kit will help us consolidate what we already do: we can do more work and therefore do it at a cheaper price for the customer.
“The only thing that keeps the market alive is being slicker and quicker. We can give cheaper prices because we get more work through the door.”
Clients include the NHS and Leeds Beckett University as well as agencies. The company runs a five-colour B2 Komori L528, a two-colour B3 Ryobi 522 and a Konica Minolta bizhub digital press.
“Five years ago we moved premises and away from film to CTP,” said White. “And this May we invested in the five-colour press with new workflow and CTP.
“We have seen job run lengths decrease and needed a solution that was easy and fast to set up. With the Horizon we can interrupt longer runs for short-turnaround work as well.
"Offering landscape as standard opens up market opportunities – it is something our older system just couldn’t do.”
The 4,500bph Horizon SPF/FC 200L feeds A4 landscape sheets up to 640mm in length. JDF-ready, the system offers instant set-ups via a large icon-based colour touchscreen.
The screen can be used for on-the-run, fine-tuning as well as to store and recall up to 200 jobs.
“It has made a massive difference and it is something we had to do or we wouldn’t still be here. We can now be more cost-effective with production and that makes us more competitive," said White.
“We can complete more jobs and are more flexible. We ran a 10-set magazine, which has a 16,000 run every five weeks. It took six hours whereas before it took two days.”
