Precision Proco has installed a Horizon StitchLiner MkIII in its Sheffield operation to mirror an investment in the technology at its Dagenham premises.
The new stitcher joins a StitchLiner 5500 and a Muller Martini Presto to handle work that falls between the two approaches. It is faster to set up and operate than the conventional saddle stitcher and offers more than the existing StitchLiner. Prime among these is the ability to produce A4 landscape products.
“The feeders are an improvement over the previous machine and the feed bins are bigger and wider,” says site production director Graeme Parry.
“We already had a Horizon StitchLiner 5500 for short to medium runs. It was supported by a Muller Presto for longer folded section work. We identified a load balancing issue between the two pieces of equipment with a disproportionate amount of stitching volume leaning towards shorter runs than the longer Muller type of work. We needed to address this with a system that would give us flexibility to cover the capacity shortfall.”
As the StitchLiner MkIII runs from flat sheets, the installation is also expected to relieve stress on the folding step, which is no longer necessary.
It comes with four collating towers and a HOF400 for feeding covers or pre collated sets from the company’s HP Indigo digital presses. A barcode printed on each sheet helps identify the job and will verify that each element of a personalised print job has been produced and finished. The new version of the digital sheet feeder is another area where Horizon has made progress, Parry says.
“What the kit now gives us is a solid platform to drive the volume of short run work. We can also increase productivity in stitched brochure work that previously was a pinch point for the site. It will give the site scale. We can now grow this sector of the business by not having the constraints on volume.
“We can expand on the throughput but also improve on our SLAs for our customers. This is something that we are using to help customers rethink how they are procuring print. We can help them migrate towards a more print on demand model so they can get their products and services out to their customers quicker. We should be seeing a return on investment on the kit in the next two to three years.”
It will also help Precision Proco shift work between sites if necessary. Dagenham has become the group’s Book Super Centre to focus on that type of work while Sheffield is handling general commercial work. It has perfect binding capacity, courtesy of Horizon technology, with a three-knife trimmer potentially the next investment.
