The move has resulted in the redundacies of 19 staff, who were offered roles at the Cardiff site, but opted not to move.
Group managing director Alan Padbury said: “It was really a cost thing. One of the problems was that while we were printing everything in Cardiff and often folding in Cardiff, we were then moving it to Bristol to be bound and often it was having to come back again afterwards, so there was quite a considerable transport cost. There were also difficulties with the remote management of a site in Bristol, with no one really based there to oversee things.”
The closure of Western Print Finishing has resulted in the relocation of folding machines and a Heidelberg cylinder press to Cardiff, and the £1.1m investment in a new Kolbus perfect binding line.
Padbury said it was was the perfect opportunity to upgrade the firm’s 18 station Kolbus Ratio binding line to a Kolbus KM600 binder, Kolbus SF832 gatherer, Kolbus HD 143 three-knife trimmer and Kolbus SA650 fore-edge trimmer.
“One of the things we’ve got now that we didn’t have before is a fore edge trimmer, which allows us to produce a book with a flush gate-folded cover,” said Padbury of the new 7,000 copies per hour, hot melt and PUR-equipped line. “That’s quite a big plus as we get quite a few of those. That can now be done in one pass - there’ll be a cost saving and speed saving.”
He added: “I’ve had experience of other binding and stitching companies and have experienced some indifferent service over the years. Whereas Kolbus are lovely people, with a fantastic factory and an innovative team. So we didn’t look around.”
The purchase of the new line and closure of Western Printing Finishing has come as part of an ongoing investment and reorganisation push. In its first 12 month, £5m phase, this has also entailed ordering two new Heidelberg XL 106 10-colour presses, to be installed April 2014 and April 2015. The order saw the printer reverse its Drupa order of a KBA Rapida 106, which KBA was unable to deliver on time.
Of his hopes for the future strength of Westdale Press, Padbury said: “I’m sure moving our finishing to Cardiff will impact on profitability, it has to. The savings on rent and rates and transport alone will be significant. I think 2014’s going to be a fantastic year.”
