It has chosen two Heidelberg 106 XLs, a six-colour with coater and a four-colour with coater, which are due to be installed in the company’s main production site in East Sussex in the first half of 2016.
They will be equipped with Inpress Control 2 and full Autoplate systems which the company said will integrate fully with its new Purity JDF platform.
Pureprint Group chief operating officer Anthony Thirlby, who joined the company in July, said it had “several investment programmes” in its digital, sheetfed and POS businesses, with the value of the total spend still to be decided. It invested in a Tharstern MIS earlier this year.
“We have a capex plan, which will be several million. Foundations were put in place earlier this year and it has been a four to five-month strategy.”
The next priority was increasing the sheetfed capacity. The new machines will replace two older presses but will be able to produce the capacity of seven older machines, Thirlby said.
Integration of the new presses will boost capacity at the company by 35%.
The company is seeing “a huge amount of bespoke creative books and magazines,” Thirlby added.
The six-colour 106 XL will enable coating and special effects.
“There are numerous different Pantone and corporate colours we work with and there is great colour specification because of the Inpress Control,” Thirlby said.
“The four-colour is very much for the commercial print side of our business. That’s all about speed and quality for our diverse client base.”
Thirlby said that the Inpress Control enables the business to save “a vast number of makeready sheets and waste”, around 4 million sheets of white papers per year, which will help the company deliver its sustainability initiatives.
“Because we are not printing these sheets we save the paper and we free up the press time those sheets would have taken up,” Thirlby added.
Pureprint has estimated that paper waste will be reduced by at least a further 20% due to the enhanced makeready performance provided by Inpress Control 2. The four-colour press will also feature a market first with sequential blanket wash and Autoplate systems.
Pureprint is also planning to reduce run lengths through the Speedmaster XL 106 platform.
Thirlby said: “The cost cross-over point between digital and litho will come down to 200 sheets.
“We have a huge growth strategy around digital and our HP Indigo platform is superb for high-quality personalised products. Together with the new Heidelberg XL combination we will continue to offer the most modern and efficient bespoke printing facility in the UK.”
Pureprint Group was named Book Printer of the Year in last month's PrintWeek Awards.
