The system was installed earlier this month at the family-run outfit’s Hertfordshire premises, and comes around five months after it took delivery of a Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 105, which Barley director Andrew Bennett said had increased Barley’s print capacity by up to 50%. The DIPS cost £10,000.
It was supplied by PrintFlow.
Bennett said: “One of our machine minders had used the DIPS before and he was very impressed with it, so we were pretty much decided on which one we were going to go for early on.
“The main benefit has been the speed and setup but the other thing is the colour consistency. We get a lot of repeat work and it really helps with the consistency. We are getting greater demand for faster print runs and by reducing setup time it has considerably increased our competitive advantage.”
The DIPS, Barley’s first, acts as a communicator between pre-press workstations and litho presses, calculating ink coverage from pre-press data and converting it into ink preset data, before passing that onto the press remote control console.
Settings for jobs can be saved and recalled to enable exact colour management for reprinted work.
Bennett’s fellow director Glen Middleton said the system had enabled the £7m-turnover business to reduce setup times by more than 50%.
“It has had a very positive effect on the team as well,” added Bennett.
“We’ve got a relatively young team and they like to see the company moving forward, investing in new technology and not standing there waiting to die.
“I’ve been in print for 30 years and there are still quite a number of printers who are of an age that they don’t want to invest but I still think there are changes to happen in the industry and it’s the people that are dynamic and constantly reinventing that will prosper.”
Bennett also praised the work of the new Speedmaster, calling it “fantastic”, and pointing out that Barley has now started putting on Saturday shifts and “occasional” Sunday shifts due to increased demand.
70-staff Barley is part of Barley House Group, which comprises five divisions: print, marketing, creative, digital and display.
It is aiming to break the £10m-turnover mark within the next three or four years.
