Folio Print Finishing has been flooded with inquiries about indexing work after announcing that it has brought the service back to the UK following the demise of Monarch Indexing earlier this year.
Folio has acquired a Durrer Remat ITS semi-automatic indexing machine from a company in Nice rather than any machinery from Monarch. “I went over to look at the machine and for intensive training on it,” says managing director Andy Bird.
After delays shipping back to the the Bristol factory due to Brexit, the machine has been installed in the factory and staff shown how to use it. It has now been in operation for three weeks and is producing commercial work.
“The machine is very user friendly,” he says, “and our staff are high skilled at print finishing and can turn their hands to most things.”
Bird seems to have tapped into a latent demand for the specialist finishing service. Index cutting remains widespread on mainland Europe where multiple companies can deliver the specialised finishing service. This has forced UK customers for reference books, directories or even address books to ship abroad, including trade finishers like Folio that outsourced jobs to Monarch.
“We would all put one or two jobs a year their way,” he says, “as did many other finishers.”
It is the potential of being able to offer indexing alongside folding, sewing, perfect binding, die cutting, saddle stitching, wire binding and cased in binding with embossing, foil blocking and lamination that excites him. “There is no more need to transport work up and down the country. We can do everything under one roof, making us one of the most comprehensive finishing houses in the country.”
This means that existing customers can be offered the additional service and that customers wanting indexing can be offered a wider spread of services. He adds: “This is a nice addition and is a great complement to everything else we are able to do. We have a very different business model to Monarch.”
The flood of inquiries since new broke suggests that Bird’s assessment will be proved correct.
