Keeping up with the march of technology has, then, been central to over 200 years of printing success. And the firm’s latest finishing kit investment, a Heidelberg Eurobind Pro, is no exception.
At the start of last year the firm decided keeping up with the times now meant, for them, bringing binding in-house. This would allow GPS to save on outsourcing costs, maintain greater control over jobs and offer faster turnaround times.
“We were spending a lot of money and we thought that bringing binding in-house would save money,” says managing director Ian McCurry. “But more importantly it brought binding under our control in terms of timescales, deadlines and quality. A lot of our customers like that we do the whole thing ourselves.”
After researching the market, looking at three other models, the firm concluded that the Eurobind Pro was the best fit for its requirements, and a 19 clamp model featuring Heidelberg’s 3D spine glue camera was installed in February 2013. “This was 50% faster than a similarly priced rival machine,” reports print finisher Brian Mornin.
The firm trialled the machine before making its purchase and found Heidelberg’s installation to be professional and thorough. Heidelberg also delivered an in-house presentation to all of the staff at GPS to explain the benefits that the Eurobind Pro would bring to the firm and what it could now offer to its clients.
“I believe it was the first Eurobind Pro installed in the UK, so Heidelberg put a lot of effort into the installation because it was using us as a bit of a benchmark. We’ve had a few problems with the knife and the trimmer, but Heidelberg has reacted very quickly and things get sorted straight away,” says McCurry.
“Installing a machine of this size into our factory was always going to be a challenge but Heidelberg dealt with everything that came along, and any small snags that cropped up from the installation were quickly sorted,” adds Mornin.
“The consultation service from Heidelberg was excellent and we worked together to ensure that we had exactly the right specifications for our company. Once installation was complete, the support that Heidelberg continued to give us was perfect. They were with us every step of the way as this was a totally new process for us.”
“We feel strongly about this approach,” adds Ian Trengrouse, post-press commercial product manager at Heidelberg. “With the technical level of our equipment, the potential advances in productivity are huge, not just with perfect binders but right across the range. But gone are the days when a salesman would simply turn up for a repeat order for similar like-for-like equipment. We look to partner with customers, and consult with them for future investments.”
Key criteria
The machine has delivered the cost, turnaround and control benefits cited as the key reasons for investing. “Our binding is now all in-house. We run the binder from 8am to 5pm at the moment, but we’d like to run it longer in the future,” says McCurry.
“Being able to perfect and PUR bind in-house as well as being able to draw on covers for thread-sewn books, gives production much more control,” adds Mornin. “As a 24/7 operation we need to be able to bind at night and weekends in order to meet our clients’ deadlines,” he adds of why opting for an industrial level binder was so important to GPS.
This extra level of quality and timescale control has proved very popular with customers, report the duo, meaning more perfect-bound work now comes the company’s way. “We are definitely producing more perfect-bound and thread-sewn work than before. It appears that having your own machine makes customers more confident in your ability,” reports Mornin.
“It has allowed us to save time, which is crucial as we wanted to service existing clients even better and create new business opportunities,” he adds.
And the firm has realised additional benefits since installation, not least on the sustainability side of things. “In addition to reducing our carbon footprint in relation to transportation of work to a trade finishers, the nozzle system for PUR glue is less wasteful than traditional open tank systems and the same can be said for the jet system for the side glue,” explains Mornin.
“Other machines that operate open tank systems are very wasteful as the whole tank of glue has to be discarded if not used within about five hours. You could be throwing away £100 of glue and obviously this would have an impact on costs. The glue cassettes used for the nozzle system allow for a quick changeover between perfect and PUR glue. The glue temperature is also lower than other machines and so requires less energy. That’s why we can offer PUR more competitively than others.”
Glue watch
Another favourite feature of the kit – and another feature justifying the Eurobind’s £750,000 price tag – is its ‘3D’ camera system, which is designed to give operators a reliable way of knowing if the right amount of PUR glue has been applied.
“Unlike a perfect-bound book, with PUR glue the operator can’t check the strength of the bind straight away because the glue needs 24 hours to cure. By then it’s too late because the job has already been run,” explains Mornin. “The 3D cameras on this machine give complete reassurance so you know the correct amount of glue has been applied. PUR glue is expensive so applying too much adds to the cost.”
Mornin adds that the binder has also
proved just the job in terms of producing high-quality A3 books. “The specification of this machine also means that it can handle A3 books,” he says. “While others may be able to produce landscape books, getting the book completely square can be a challenge. The Eurobind Pro gives a much better result.”
And it’s not only customers enjoying the results. The binder is of such exceptional quality, says Mornin, that it has boosted staff morale. “The ability to produce prestigious book work in-house on the most sophisticated and biggest machines of their type in Ireland has given the team a real boost,” he says. “Having 16 sections means we are able to bind more pages in one pass than some of our competitors, which makes us more cost-competitive on books with large numbers of pages.”
The company believes that the binder is suitable for any company in need of a robust but flexible industrial binder. “But we’d rather retain exclusivity in this service of course!” says Mornin, who says that the firm would happily buy another Heidelberg binder if a replacement or additional capacity were needed.
So GPS is over the moon with its purchase. “It does everything that you would expect the most technically advanced machine to do,” says Mornin. “It’s a very reliable machine and Heidelberg as a supplier gives you confidence because it has really good service and support. We now have total control and peace of mind over a very technical process, so the value of this machine is not just monetary.”
“It’s definitely fulfilled the task that we bought it for and there’s nothing I don’t like about it,” adds McCurry. “We’re doing the same jobs that we’ve always done but it’s just brought us more control. We’ve never done binding in-house before so putting in your own binder gives you the confidence that you’re now in that sort of league.”
SPECIFICATIONS
Speed 6,000cph
Clamps 19 or 24
Max block width 320mm
Max block height 485mm
Max block thickness 60mm
Max overall cover width 710mm
Max cover height 490mm
Signature grammage 60-170gsm
Price From £750,000 depending on specification
Contact Heidelberg 020 8490 3500 www.uk.heidelberg.com
Company profile
Family-owned and managed GPS Colour Graphics was founded by Joseph Smith in Belfast in 1797 and became an incorporated company in 1912. It has been known as GPS Colour Graphics since 1973. The £8m-turnover, 76-staff firm has recently launched a digital service and now produces in excess of 86m items per year, ranging from leaflets and flyers to brochures and catalogues. It takes on both low- and high-volume jobs for both public and private sectors. The company also runs two Komori B1 perfecting presses, a Muller Martini sewing machine, a Heidelberg ST 400 stitching line (with an ST 450 stitching line soon to be added), two automated Heidelberg folding lines and two MBO folding machines.
Why it was bought…
GPS picked Heidelberg’s Eurobind Pro because, as a 24/7 operation, it needed an industrial-level machine to bring its binding in-house. In this way it hoped to both better service existing clients, and to create new business opportunities. “It allowed us to save time and have more control over schedules, quality and cost,” says print finisher Brian Mornin.
How it has performed…
“It does everything that you would expect it to,” says Mornin. The machine has enabled GPS to cut its outsourcing costs and save on transport time and money. It has increased the company’s quality and control and given it the ability to take on more perfect-bound and thread-sewn work than before.
