The Bermondsey, London-based firm bought the machine, which was installed in May, for around £10,000 from Terry Cooper Services (TCS).

The business found that its run lengths were getting smaller and that it would be more cost-effective to invest in a perfect binder than to continue outsourcing binding work.

“Perfect binding is the last bit of work that we were outsourcing. We hardly send any finishing out because we just don’t have time these days and we were having to wait a couple of days for it. It’s brought the whole production process completely under our control now,” said sales manager Peter Norman.

The investment has enabled the company to take on a wider variety of jobs and be able to offer its services to the trade.

“It has certainly helped us gain more business where people, and printers now too, are looking for 24-hour perfect-bound books,” said Norman.

“Short-run perfect binding is a difficult thing to fulfill and we don’t have much competition in that respect, so we’ve already managed to pull some work in.”

The firm researched the market and liked the compact build, speed of operation and ease-of-use of the Premier 420.

“It was the best binder that we saw that fell within our budget and it’s been very easy to get to grips with. We’ve got four people responsible for running the machine and they got used to it very quickly. We had a job running on it the day after it was installed,” said Norman.

The Premier 420 binds in one process and runs at 400bph. It has a heavy-duty design for production durability and two application glue rollers for efficient application. It also features a 7in touchscreen menu with self-test and diagnostic capabilities.

The firm, which has seven employees and a turnover of £400,000, runs five Konica Minolta Bizhubs; two colour and three black and white. It produces items including booklets, business cards, stationery, posters and magazines for customers in a range of industries including the financial and education sectors.