It’s an ambitious claim, but one the Kent-based company continues to live up to.
Although the business started life as a letterpress shop back in 1954, it’s now a major commercial litho and digital printer that produces everything from business cards to magazines and brochures with a raft of top-of-the-range kit.
Its latest press, a 10-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 perfector, was installed in March 2014, the same year as the company celebrated its 60th year in business.
“Everything” includes a commitment to sustainable production. Marstan Press was one of the first companies in the UK to adopt chemistry-free CTP technology in 2003 as well as one of the first to secure FSC certification in 2007. In 2014 it was rewarded for it efforts at the 2014 Bexley Business Awards at which it won the Best Green Business award.
Around the same time, Marstan recognised that it had to invest further to ensure it was maximising production and getting the most out of the new press.
Curtis’s experience dates back to the days before computers ruled the roost in the pre-press department, having been in print for 23 years, 15 of them at Marstan. So he has lots of expertise in the field and has high expectations of the machines he uses.
According to Curtis, as a result of the faster press and additions to the sales team, the company found it was having to produce litho plates much faster to ensure makereadies and changeovers weren’t holding back production.
“With the new press and the new sales reps we had a lot more work coming through. In terms of actual production of plates I wasn’t able to keep up,” he says.
Consequently, at the end of last year, the company took the decision to upgrade its pre-press set-up and invest in a new platesetter. At the time the company was using a Heidelberg Suprasetter 74, which was operating perfectly well but just wasn’t quick enough to keep up with the company’s throughput. Upgrades to the machine’s operating software also meant that a new platesetter was becoming more necessary.
“The software is regularly upgraded by Heidelberg with all the latest Acrobat features and InDesign features, but there comes a point where the upgrades are too powerful for the processor. And at that point we have to upgrade the whole machine itself,” Curtis says.
And, based on the company’s own experience and to tie-in with its XL 75 press, there was only one machine they were looking at – Heidelberg’s Suprasetter A75.
“On this occasion it was always going to be Heidelberg. We’ve had Suprasetter-style machines previously, but I didn’t actually find them as good as the Heidelbergs. It’s about quality really,” Curtis explains.
“The overall support you get was nowhere near as fast with other makes, and the quality and speed of the machines just wasn’t as good as Heidelberg. Obviously Heidelberg is more expensive than some other brands, but when it came to buying this new machine, it made more sense to stick with what we knew.”
The new machine was installed in March and several months down the line, Curtis knows it was the right decision – the A75 has boosted throughput of plates as well as eliminated another problem the company was having.
“Speed-wise it’s about 15%-20% faster than the old machine and quality-wise it’s a lot better because it doesn’t suffer from the slipsheet issue that we used to get through the old machine.
“Each one of those plates has a sheet of paper in between it and the one below to stop it scratching the coating, so when you load the machine with, say, 100 plates you’re going to have 100 sheets of paper in there as well. So when the machine picks up the plate, it needs to remove the paper and get rid of it. With the old machine that works about 99% of the time. But you do have issues with it sometimes when it drops a sheet.
“It’s something that happens with a lot machines and has been a problem for many years. The new one doesn’t have that. The air compressor has been upgraded, and all the electronics, which were needed to move the slipsheets have been removed to make it a lot simpler and sleeker, and it actually works.
“It just ejects the sheet out of the front. Just below where the plates go in. So it doesn’t have to worry about trying to move the sheet of paper around. That really does solve the issue.”
Full plate
Marstan also buys its Saphira Eco plates through Heidelberg as part of its deal with the manufacturer. It didn’t need to change the default package Heidelberg provides. But it did make sure to increase the capacity to allow the machine to run overnight without monitoring.
“We needed to make sure the new platesetter had a 100-plate preload, which is a key requirement for us because before I go home in the evening I can line up 100 plates worth of work into the machine and set it running through the night, so when we come in in the morning there’ll be loads there to put together,” says Curtis.
As part of the pre-press revamp, the company also decided to build a new mezzanine level above its press hall to house its CTP suite. Curtis says moving the pre-press kit required careful planning but was a relatively straightforward operation that took a couple of days. The A75 was delivered straight to the new CTP suite.
“The older machine was brought across from the other building beforehand. Then we got that machine running before the new one to make sure we had production running without a problem,” says Curtis.
He needn’t have worried, however: “Once the machine was up and running we were pretty much in production straight away, unlike with a press, which needs more time to stabilise. With the A75 we just align the lasers, turn it on and away it goes. It’s really simple.”
Marstan has a service agreement with Heidelberg to keep all its machines in tip-top condition and the new Suprasetter falls under the same agreement.
“It’s all computer controlled so once we’ve produced a certain amount of work it will flag up a message saying that I need to ring up and schedule my annual service. As long as they’re serviced and maintained regularly they pretty much last forever.”
Unsurprisingly Curtis is most pleased with the speed of the machine, that being the main reason the platesetter had been bought. However it wasn’t the only feature of the A75 that impressed him.
“The physical size of the machine certainly makes a difference. It’s more compact so it’s not taking up as much room. The quality of the wash-up is also a lot better. It saves us a lot of time.”
Marstan also saves money indirectly because the machine produces more plates per hour.
The company has also been delighted with the way the machine assists its environmental endeavours and supports its efforts to operate in a more sustainable way, not least through the use of the Saphira Eco plates.
Curtis explains: “The machines that we have up here don’t produce that much waste. The chemical bottles that I use to gum the plates up are recycled as many times as they can before they are disposed of and then they’re taken away. So there are no chemicals going down the drain. All the slipsheets are recyclable. And the waste metal once it’s been used is recyclable so we try and keep recycling as much as we can all the way through.”
When prompted to pick out something about the machine that could be improved or an additional feature he’d like to see, Curtis struggles: “I’m very happy with what it does and what it produces and with the service I get from Heidelberg.
“It’s been absolutely great and to be perfectly honest when it comes time to look again for another machine I would definitely be looking straight to Heidelberg simply, because of the quality and the service we get with it.”
SPECIFICATIONS
Max throughput 23 plates/hr
Max imaging size 656x760mm
Plate sizes Max: 676x760mm; Min: 240x240mm
Footprint 1,550x1,218mm
Workflow integration Prinect Prepress Manager, Prinect MetaDimension, Prinect Shooter
Price From £70,000
Contact Heidelberg UK 020 8490 3500 www.uk.heidelberg.com
Company profile
Family-run Marstan Press was founded as a letterpress print business by Stanley Lett in 1954. It’s now run by Martin Lett Snr, who joined the company in 1968, working his way up from apprentice to his current role as managing director. Martin Lett Jnr joined the firm in 2005 as sales and marketing director. Pre-press manager and IT specialist Adam Curtis has been at the company for 15 years. The Bexleyheath-based firm moved into litho printing in 1972 with the purchase of a Kord 62 press, followed by a Heidelberg GTO in 1975, and is now focused on producing direct mail, brochures and magazines. Marstan Press is committed to environmental sustainability, winning ‘Best Green Business’ at the 2014 Bexley Business Awards, and was one of the first UK companies to adopt chemical-free CTP technology in 2003. The firm’s print firepower is now based around its 10-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL 75 press purchased last year. In 2009 it moved into the digital print market; a Konica c8000 digital press is the company’s most recent major investment in this area. In addition it operates two Xerox 8080s, a Xerox 7000AP and a Canon Océ CS665. The company has more than 50 employees and a turnover of around £4.6m.
Why it was bought...
The platesetter that Marstan relied on before, the Suprasetter 74, couldn’t keep up with the new press. “The plate quantity that I needed to produce every day has gone up. We wanted to stay with Heidelberg and this is the latest one on the market which is obviously quicker than what we had,” says pre-press manager Adam Curtis.
How it has performed...
As expected. Plate production can now keep up with the faster press. “Speed-wise it’s about 15%-20% faster than the old machine and quality-wise it’s a lot better,” says Curtis. “All of the slipsheet issues we had with the old machine have been alleviated.”
