The Scarborough-based company spent £625,000 on a refurbished five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 with Inpress Control and invested another £400,000 in finishing and pre-media kit and software to support its B2 move.
The Speedmaster was commissioned two weeks ago and prior to its arrival the firm laid a new floor to support the new press. The majority of the other equipment was also commissioned on the same day.
Previously relying on digital presses and two B3 Speedmasters for the majority of its jobs, the purchase represents Adverset's B2 debut. As a result, the firm has decomissioned its B3 five-colour Speedmaster SM 52 with coater, while the its two-colour SM 52 has been retained for die-cutting and single-colour jobs.
Adverset managing director John Easby said the switch to B2 was driven by customers increasingly requiring the larger format for their jobs, mainly for timetable and theatre programme contracts.
Easby said: “We’ve always been B3 and nearly purchased a B2 a few years ago but for whatever reason we decided against it and went into digital before circumstances changed."
He said the firm had saved between £200,000 and £300,000 by opting for a refurbished 2011 press, compared to a new machine, but he said that after Heidelberg completed the refurb in Belgium it was "almost like new".
“The beauty of the XL is that it still has the new technology on it. My mantra against buying secondhand only counts when buying into old technology, but in this case we are buying used but with new technology, Inpress control with all the whistles and bells, which normally would have been superseded.”
Easby highlighted the Inpress Control as the aspect that most appealed to him about the Speedmaster, along with its faster makereadies. It also runs a greater range of stocks at a faster speed than the B3 machines.
“The main thing is we will be more competitive, able to handle a bigger variety of work to push the turnover up and have more profitability,” added Easby.
“The B3 market is dying really; a few years ago B2 presses were always looking at longer runs but now because of the speed of the makeready we can print, say, 100 posters B2, rather than automatically putting them through our wide-format department.”
The finishing and workflow spend, which was allocated with money saved from the press investment, included an upgraded B2 Heidelberg Suprasetter A75 and Prinect Prepress manager workflow.
Adverset also installed a Drupa-purchased Horizon AFC-566 folder, an Epson proofer and a used Muller Martini Presto stitching line.
The Muller joins Adverset’s existing Duplo DBM 5000 bookletmaker, which will now be moved onto jobs of less than 15,000 runs.
On the digital side, Adverset already runs a three-year-old Heidelberg Linoprint C751 and anticipates a further investment in a Versafire in Q1 of next year.
Its roster of wide-format kit includes a 1.5m-wide Mimaki CJV150 printer-cutter and a 1.5m-wide HP Latex.
Alongside the investment, Adverset brought in two new staff in early November, to bring its workforce up to 22, eight of which work in its design department.
