Arriving in late June, the finishing machine has already helped Printstore tackle higher volumes of work for its restaurant chain customer base, while speeding through shorter run lengths.
“We’re really focusing on smaller runs,” Ben Pickard, general manager of Printstore, told Printweek.
“Now, our Xerox operator, can pretty much print 10 jobs at the same time, and they’re ready to go in a box. It has freed up the guillotine we have here to take on larger-volume work and helps us get these smaller jobs done.”
Back in January, Printstore – which used to be an entirely litho house – cut ties with analogue printing, sending its two Heidelberg presses up to Preston-based Affinity Packaging, its sister company under print entrepreneur Peter Andreou.
The two four-colour presses, an SM 52 and SM 74, went up to join Affinity’s six-colour UV Koenig & Bauer 105 and 142 presses. Printstore now runs its work through a Xerox Versant 4100, alongside a range of wide-format machines, including an HP Latex 315, an HP Z6100 aqueous machine and a Mimaki roll-to-roll UJV-500 printer.
“It was really about maximising our resources across the group, and each location sticking to its core strengths. They’ve got a huge facility [near Preston] with more than 60 staff, and it makes things very efficient,” Pickard said.
Where Affinity, and fellow sister company Eco Packaging, are focused on packaging, Printstore enjoys its own niche as a provider to restaurants, with menus, posters and printed marketing among its key products.
Easing the company’s business model is its web-to-print tool that it now runs through the Duplo with Fiery software; margins are high, too, because the firm has grown organically with many of its clients, without having to rely on salespeople: with just eight employees, it turns over around £2m.
“That’s where the automation really helps,” Pickard said.
“Restaurants have full autonomy over what they order, when they order, and how they order it. And we’ve set it up so it goes straight through to the digital department, which handles it from print to dispatch – and at the minute, it often just needs one person looking after that whole process.
“It’s great for the business, maintains the margins, and keeps us strong, healthy, and profitable.”
