Supplied by Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS) and installed at Bluestar’s Ilford facility in mid-January, the HT-300 has a maximum production speed of 300 cycles per hour, equivalent to five units per minute. 

It has now taken a significant load off the firm’s Polar 115 ED guillotine, with work coming straight from Bluestar’s Horizon BQ500 iCE perfect binder to the HT300, and has allowed the firm to group all of its digital and litho binding together.

“It’s fantastic,” Lee Harvey, Bluestar’s managing director, told Printweek.

“Beforehand, we were mostly on the guillotine, and it was causing a bottleneck. It really enhances our operations, and now as the books are bound, they’re finished.

“The way it’s looking, it has probably put another 25% on the number of books we can produce in a day.” 

Thanks to the HT300’s high speed, the firm can now also offer next-day delivery on the majority of digital jobs received in the early morning.

This fast pace of work would not have been possible without the firm’s BQ500, installed at the end of 2023.

“It’s been a complete game-changer. We had a BQ470 before that, which was a really good machine, but this one’s just on a whole new level,” Harvey said.

“With the upgrades they’ve put on it, work is literally going straight into the binder from the folding machines or digital [folders].”

Bluestar operates as a trade finisher for printers all around the country, specialising in short-run litho and digital work. The next piece of kit to go in will likely be a new collator or folder, Harvey said.

“Now that we’ve put in the three-knife trimmer, we’re so much faster: we did a job the other day of 3,000 copies, and the trimmer was actually waiting around for the binder,” he explained.

Bluestar employs a team of seven, bringing in around £400,000 of business a year.