The Push to Stop press, which was the demonstration machine at Heidelberg’s Brentford showroom, was installed over the Christmas break at Keighley, West Yorkshire-based Fretwell’s 1,161sqm premises and has been running live production since the first week of January.
It has replaced a five-year-old Speedmaster XL 75-5+LX, which was part-exchanged with Heidelberg.
Joint managing director Andy Gillett told Printweek Fretwell has been a Heidelberg house for around 20 years and also currently operates a four-colour Speedmaster 74 2/2 perfector and a Versafire EV digital production press. In the next few weeks, it will also upgrade its workflow to Prinect 2021.
Alongside this it operates a wide range of finishing kit from Stahl, Muller Martini, MBO, Polar and Wohlenberg, along with direct mail equipment from Buhrs and Bell & Howell.
“The new press is in production now and it’s producing very, very well. Heidelberg did a lot of analysis on our workflow and came up with a figure of around 400 extra hours a year by changing machines, which obviously makes a considerable difference,” said Gillett.
“We’re already getting through more jobs per week, so it is genuinely more productive – Heidelberg worked out this press gives us about an extra day and a half a month of production based upon existing shift patterns.
“The press had done 1.4 million impressions when it arrived here, and it took us a fortnight to do the same amount of impressions again. We’ve now done five million impressions on it since it went in.”
He added waste and running costs have also been reduced compared to the previous press.
Fretwell’s productivity increase is attributable to Inpress Control and AutoPlate Pro. Inpress Control measures colour and registration inline at make ready and during production, reducing makeready times and waste sheets.
AutoPlate Pro, meanwhile, ensures precise and fast plate changes while Wallscreen technology with Push to Stop ensures fully automated job changing.
Gillett said training was “very smooth, as it always is with Heidelberg” with the majority of the controls the same as the company’s previous press. The bulk of the company’s learning was for the higher level of automation via the Wallscreen display and AutoPlate Pro.
Fretwell used the government’s low rate CBILS finance package for the investment, which was arranged through Mark Quinn of Bespoke Asset Finance.
The business employs just over 40 staff and has a turnover of more than £5m, which has grown over the last 15 years from less than £1m.
It serves major financial clients, charities, print management companies, local government and educational establishments, plus other commercial clients in various market sectors.
