Fretwells Print & Design has taken advantage of “a deal that we couldn’t resist” to swap out its five-year-old Speedmaster XL75 for a new five-colour plus coater Speedmaster XL75.
Joint managing director Andy Gillet says the press had been the demonstration machine from Heidelberg’s UK showroom in Brentford which is closing as part of a move for the press supplier. It had few impression and all the bells and whistles needed on a demonstration machine.
The impression count is now heading toward 5 million, Fretwells having notched 3.5 million sheets during January, its first month of operation. “It has a full Autoplate Pro and push to stop technology,” he says. “Heidelberg calculated that we would get an additional 400 hours of production a year. And with finance available at a low rate, this was the right time to invest for the long term and for the short term.
“Autoplate Pro will halve current makeready times which because our average run is 5,000-6,000 sheets, it amounts to a lot more jobs per year.”
Like the previous XL75, the new press also has Inpress Control and connections to the Prinect suite that also drives the company’s Versafire digital press. This was installed along with a Konica Minolta mono press in 2019. Heidelberg has also supplied the business with Stahl folder and Polar guillotine.
The new Speedmaster was delivered to the Keighley company a week before Christmas with training in the period between Christmas and the new year ready for production to kick off in January.
Gillet, along with Gareth Pociecha, led a management buyout in 2018. There has been no change in strategy, with the new owners building on progress that had taken turnover from £1 million to £6 million in 15 years.
This coincides with expansion into direct mail with clients drawn from financial services, the third sector, local government and education. “Over the last year, the financial services sector has been stable as consumers continue to receive credit card statements and similar. There has been a drop in retail and hospitality, but we are not heavily exposed to that market place,” says Gillet.
Now the company is ready for any post pandemic upswing in business.
