The Buckingham-based firm will take delivery of the Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75-5 LE-UV with Inpress Control 2 and Autoplate Pro in April.
BCQ Group commercial director Alan Pond told PrintWeek the five-colour press would improve the firm’s turnaround times: “We do an awful lot of uncoated work and LE-UV will hopefully cure straight away rather than waiting for work to dry.
“It will also boost our capacity and turnover and will be beneficial all round. We’ve got an area in the factory lined out for the press and it will fit right into it.”
LE-UV technology uses lamps that are doped with iron. These lamps don’t emit the shorter UV wavelengths that generate ozone, and as a result remove the need for ozone extraction.
Additionally, as they consume less energy they produce less heat, so require less cooling, which helps reduce the power consumption of the UV curing system.
The company already runs four conventional Speedmaster presses, including two XL 75s, as well as HP Indigo digital printers and EFI, Fujifilm, Mimaki and HP wide-format equipment.
Though BCQ Group would not reveal the cost of the Heidelberg investment, it said it has also spent £175,000 on new Horizon perfect binding kit, which was supplied by Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS).
A PUR BQ-470 four-clamp perfect binder and an HT1000V variable three-knife trimmer were installed at the firm’s 2,323sqm premises last month, replacing an older Horizon machine that was part exchanged.
The 1,350bph BQ-470, which is suitable for mid-range soft back book production, including runs-of-one, joins a Horizon StitchLiner 5500 that the business uses for both litho and digital production.
The HT1000V trimmer produces high quality variable short-run and book-of-one production at up to 1,000bph.
“This will allow us to retain control of our own work instead of subcontracting. There were occasions where we’d be spending £30,000 to £40,000 a month on perfect binding.
“It has a lot more capacity and functionality on it than the machine that went out and it will enable us to win more work. We can now collate and bind longer runs in-house that we would have traditionally put out, which has allowed us to bring our costs down and be more competitive.”
BCQ Group has 130 staff and a turnover of around £11m. It works with a wide range of local, national and international operations, including automotive, agencies and charities.
Last year the company bought a new Promatrix 106 CS die-cutter, a Heidelberg Stitchmaster ST 500 and a new Tharstern management information system (MIS).
