Installed in late July, the machine expands Suffolk-based Fuller Davies’ kit and will run alongside a B1 five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster CX 102, which was installed in 2016.
The new device, supplied by Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS), will mainly be used to produce work including fine art brochures, price guides and university prospectuses.
Managing director Neil Stones said: “We have been considering bringing perfect binding in-house for a while. After analysing our run lengths, we found our average binding run was 2,000 or below so the timing felt right.
“We wanted an easy-to-use, quality binder that would give us the ability to turn perfect binding jobs around quickly. The BQ-270V helps us to do just that.
“Being able to produce perfect binding in-house easily has made our production more efficient and meant we can be more responsive. We have a couple of team members who are familiar with Horizon binders already and others are already very confident and really pleased with how well it runs.”
The Horizon BQ-270V runs at 500cph and can facilitate on-demand production for a variety of book thicknesses.
It joins a variety of finishing kit onsite, including a Muller Martini Bravo Plus saddle-stitcher and a Duplo 600i bookletmaker which were installed at Fuller Davies at the back end of a £2.8m investment drive across 2016-17. It also runs folding, die-cutting, laminating and laser capabilities in-house.
Digital printing is carried out at the firm by a Kodak NexPress with long sheet and special finish capabilities.
With 25 staff on its 1,600sqm premises in Ipswich, the company turns over £3m.
