The Lithoman, which will replace one of Roche's two 32pp Heidelberg M300s, will double the factory's text page output.  "We've got a few new contracts in the pipeline," said St Ives Web managing director David Emeny.

The four-unit, 42,500cph press will have a 1,240mm cut-off, ribbon folder and GMI closed loop colour control. It is identical in specification to the one set to be running at St Ives Peterborough next spring.

Roche's work mix includes quick turnaround weeklies, as well as monthly perfect bound titles and commercial work. Emeny said the Lithoman had proved itself suitable for shorter-run work: "We looked at different press formats and did lots of tests. They do short-runs very nicely."

Commissioning of the press will begin at the end of January with plans to be fully operational by May.

Potential finishing bottlenecks have been avoided by the firm's move to focus perfect binding in the West Country by moving a Corona perfect binder from St Ives Caerphilly to Roche (PrintWeek, 1 April). This brings five perfect binders to the region, two at Roche and three at Plymouth 35-40 miles away. "We might print sections at one factory and bind at the other," explained Emeny.

The work mix at Caerphilly, which has suffered from "massive peaks and troughs" in production, is being changed to include weekly titles.

The total spend at Roche is in the region of 8.5m-9m, bringing the firm's investment in the web division to over 20m this year, with more set to follow.

"No doubt there will another press or two within the next twelve months, and probably some more bindery investment too," said Emeny.

"Yet again St Ives have shown us their confidence... and hopefully there will be a few more [presses] as well," said MAN Roland GB web director Norman Revill.

The two Xcalibur platesetters are a coup for Agfa, as the group's other sites use Creo engines with Agfa workflows. "We think there are few compelling arguments for us now to use Agfa," added Emeny.

Story by Darryl Danielli