The kit was installed earlier this month at the operation’s premises, which are situated within County Hall in Northallerton, North Yorkshire.
It has replaced an existing Duplo booklet line that was part-exchanged as the council needed something that could better handle 80pp booklets and thicker substrates.
John Metcalfe, head of the 10-staff County Print Unit, told Printweek: “We’ve had Duplo machines for a number of years and we’re very happy with them, and staying with them also gives us continuity.
“The new machine lets us stitch and trim the full 80 pages at a thicker substrate, and it’s also increased our speeds. We were previously doing one job at a rate of 600 booklets per hour, and that’s now up to about 1,700 per hour – it’s almost tripled the speed.
“We can also now do A4 landscape jobs, which is something we’ve not been able to do before.”
Metcalfe also liked the new “more intuitive” touchscreen, which enables the council to save programme settings and easily identify any jams.
The 600i Booklet System has joined a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster 52 and a single-colour Heidelberg GTO with numbering and perfing.
The County Print Unit also operates a Xerox Versant 180 digital printer, an HP wide-format printer, a Stahl folder, a Polar guillotine and a Neopost envelope inserter, as it also does its own mailing.
“We work for the NHS and local district councils, and do a little bit for registered charities,” said Metcalfe.
“We do Hambleton District Council’s council tax and inserts, we’ve got a contract to do the printing for Richmondshire District Council, and we also do quite a lot for Selby District Council.”
