The Basildon, Essex-based outfit will take delivery of the machine, which is a direct replacement for its current four-year-old five-colour plus coater XL 106, on 26 January.
It will be one of the first delivered in the UK in Heidelberg’s Drupa-launched Push to Stop specification, which is intended to help drive huge increases in productivity. Heidelberg has previously said Push to Stop could pave the way to potentially doubling the net productivity of presses.
Early adopters of the technology gave their initial feedback on the new machines to PrintWeek last November. The first such press in the UK was installed at Letchworth-based Falkland Press on 2 November.
Elle managing director James Cuthbert said that with reduced makeready times gained using Heidelberg’s Autoplate XL, using the machine to its limits will equate to around 170 additional sellable hours per year.
“Most of the purchase was based around gains in productivity,” said Cuthbert.
“Push to Stop is a bit unquantifiable because it will offer us other gains in terms of productivity and time gained back but at the moment no one is really using it to the level we will be. People have bought into the machine as a whole but we push our current machine harder than a lot of others; our output from the single press is probably what most get from two.”
Cuthbert added that he was always going to opt for the 18,000sph-Speedmaster, as he believed few machines were as proven as the XL platform.
Elle claims to be the first company in the UK to have automated indexing and tabbing using Heidelberg’s Quality Assistant, which automatically signals when a job is reaching its required quality standard.
The Speedmaster will also be configured with Wallscreen XL, Intellistart 2, Inpress Control 2 and a full Prinect 17 upgrade.
Autoplate XL 2 simultaneously cleans printing blankets when plates are being changed while Intellistart 2 plans and works through jobs and is an upgrade from Elle’s previous Intellistart module.
The full Prinect upgrade will help it connect up with other machines on its premises, including a May-installed Polar N 137 Pro guillotine.
“We’re looking from day one to start realising productivity gains. Most of the change is system-based so I would be disappointed to say it took us months rather than weeks or even days to realise the change because it should be instantaneous,” added Cuthbert.
50-staff Elle, which had sales of £7m at the end of 2016, is looking to boost that figure to £8m by the end of this year and have increased that further to more than £10m within the next few years.
Operating from one 7,620sqm premises and mainly printing small-format items from catalogues to takeaway menus, along with greetings cards, Elle also runs two MBO folders, a Muller Martini stitching line, a Kora-Packmat greetings cards packing machine and a Heidelberg Original Cylinder for cutting and creasing.
