Eclipse Colour invests 750k in kit to reduce outsourcing costs

Commercial printer Eclipse Colour Print has invested 750,000 in its bindery and pre-press departments as part of a bid to reduce outsourcing costs and make its factory JDF compliant.

The Kettering-based company has boosted its finishing flexibility with a £450,000 Muller Martini PrimaPlus saddle stitcher.

The eight-station plus cover stitcher was configured with a stream feeder, trim monitors, Muller’s fully automated makeready system, AMRYS, and an ASIR quality control package.

According to Eclipse managing director Simon Moore, the 14,000cph PrimaPlus will reduce the firm’s outsourcing costs by enabling it to handle higher section work than the three-year old six-station plus cover Heidelberg ST400 it replaced. The investment will also support several new long-term contracts.

The web and sheetfed house has also ordered a Kodak Prinergy workflow suite and B1 thermal Magnus platesetter to replace its Brisque workflow and Creo Lotem 800V.

The pre-press upgrade was undertaken to link its customer service and pre-press operation, through integrating the workflow with its Tharstern MIS.

With the rules-based automation of Prinergy we aim to automate the process of preflighting, ripping and proofing and increase our productivity without increasing labour, said Moore.

Using the Insite Prepress Portal we can also offer clients the ability to submit jobs, view, annotate and approve or reject proofs online.

Once the workflow is up and running the firm will look at upgrading its fleet of five folders, with the possibility of switching some or all to JDF-complaint models.