Why did you make the purchase?
The council recently upgraded one printer to a Canon C6000 colour machine for printing penalty charges and other notices. Capacity was available for it to print business cards, posters and A5, four-page brochures and leaflets, but a creaser was required to crease the digitally printed brochures and leaflets in order to prevent them cracking.

What does the machine do?
It is a high-speed SRA2 fully programmable card creaser. The creaser can be programmed anywhere along the length of the sheet. Stock can be creased in sizes from CD to SRA2. It was supplied with four creasing width tools to cover the stock range of 80-400gsm. Three steel matrix creasing tools were also supplied. They have proved very popular for creasing lightweight stocks from 80-150gsm. This is good for providing a single point crease rather than the square box crease made by the metal tool, especially if the job needs to be stitched.

Why did you make the purchase?
I looked on the website for a creaser that was easy to set up and could handle short-run jobs. We already had a KAS Mailmaster 465HS enveloper, so we contacted KAS Paper Systems, who introduced us to Ashgate Automation, their UK distributor for KAS creasers and bookletmakers.
 
Did you look at any other machines?  
Yes, but the Crease Matic met all our requirements. It's a well-built machine at a good price.

What features do you particularly like?
It's a suction-fed system, which is important when creasing digitally printed stock with a lot of static. We like its flexibility and the ability to crease up to 480 micron board, which means we may produce our own folders at some stage. We also like the fact that we are able to perforate using the same machine.
 
Is there anything you would like it to have?
We would like to micro perforate and we are hopeful that at some time it may be available to retro-fit.
 
How fast is it?
 It can operate at up to 7,000sph using a bottom-feed suction system for continuous production. As our runs are anything between 2,000-5,000 sheets, we don't run it at top speed.
 
How much time and money has it saved?
It has saved on both. We now have control of all the jobs in-house, so if something is urgent, we can turn it around very quickly. If the C6000 prints a 2,000-run of a four-page A5 brochure two-up on SRA3 paper, we can save more than a third of the total cost of the job compared with outsourcing it.

What's the quality like?
The quality of our digital print compares very favourably with any litho offset job and now we can finish it to a very high standard.

Has it won you any new work? 
In the first week, we creased 15,000 sheets and, as the word spreads, I am confident we will win new work internally.
 
How was the installation and service?
Good. The machine was installed four days after we ordered it. Ashgate gave us a half-day training.
 
Who is the machine right for?
It's good for any printer or inplant department wanting to finish digital work professionally.
 
Under what circumstances would you buy another?
I think we have made a good investment that should last us for many years and give us the capacity we need.

Conclusion
User’s verdict   
Speed    *****
Quality    ****
Reliability    *****
Value for money    ****

Supplier’s response    
John Price, managing director of Ashgate Automation, says: It speaks volumes when a customer comes back to a manufacturer for a completely different piece of kit, based on the performance from their first KAS product. The build quality of the Crease Matic Auto50 is excellent and will give the London Borough of Newham many years of service.
Price £9,750
Contact Ashgate Automation 01865 891904