Venn Holdings has ordered a first B1 press, and will install a four-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster XL106 with coater. This will replace an XL75 at the Hampshire factory, which itself was installed just 14 months ago, when it arrives in February next year.
The move should be a smooth one for the business as folders, guillotine and platesetter are already B1 capable, or will be when the B1 Suprasetter is delivered next month.
“The investment will give us a significant increase in volumes,” says director Andy Rae. “We can swap out one press without needing to increase other costs and the labour element is the same. Most people that move up from B2 need to invest around the press, we don’t need to do that.”
The press will also offer a reduction in Venn’s already slim makeready times as the B1 press has more functions that take place simultaneously than the current B2 machine. The larger sheet will also offer greater opportunities in efficiency when ganging up jobs.
“There will be fewer double passes on the stitcher because signatures will have double the pages,” says Rae.
The business focuses on short run work (“On the cusp between litho and digital” according to Rae) with average run length of 3,000 sheets and falling. The improvements in makeready that the new machine is calculated to deliver creates a further three weeks of capacity, he explains. The run lengths will make the straight press more productive than a long perfecting option, even if it were possible to install in the factory.
It reports that sales are running 245% higher than a year ago and that year to date it has completed and delivered 17,500 orders.
Adjustments are being made so that the company can accommodate a greater volume of larger sheets of paper. Space is being created alongside the HP Indigo 12K for both white paper and work in progress. This and the Indigo 100K will have a greater role with the shift to a larger sheet in litho. The calculation on which way to print a job does not have a clean break point, but depends on schedules and the advantage that digital has in printing in collated order, not just the click rate. This should be compared to the full costs of printing litho, including plates, ink and other consumables.
“We have found a nice sweet spot on how we can go digital and how we go to digital,” he adds.
Along with the platesetter, the business will take delivery of additional folder and a first PUR perfect binder in the coming weeks.
