Offset Printing
Stephens & George Print Group is “Inpressed” with XL 105-8-P
Sunday 01. June 2008 - Stephens & George Print Group is one of the vanguard of UK companies adopting Speedmaster XL 105 long perfector technology. Group managing director Andrew Jones, who is at Drupa this week, says: "This press is 100% more productive than the nine year old SM 102-8P it replaces and at least 30% more productive than our latest SM102 long perfector. Im here at Drupa to enjoy the moment, knowing we have already made a momentous investment in Heidelbergs latest, greatest long perfector."
The long perfector is specified with eight printing units and CutStar (S&G has been a long term fan of the reel to sheet device). But it is also equipped with Heidelbergs productivity tool Inpress Control which measures the colour on the run and enables the press to automatically self-correct.
Heidelberg UKs B1 product manager Gernot Keller believes Inpress Control alone could increase the productivity at Stephens & George by up to 10% given its job structure and that this tool should be the focus of every industrial printers attention.
S&G achieved 3.6 million sheets in the first month after installation and before Inpress Control was added. Once bedded in this press will strongly outpace the average 2.5 million sheets a month typical of its SM 102 long perfectors.
“Our biggest challenge is cultural not technological,” says Mr Jones. “With this press operators have to set it up and then it runs itself. There is no stopping. In demonstration on an XL 105 long perfector without CutStar we saw a colour job get into register in about 179 sheets, about 100 less than we have been used to on the SM 102 long perfectors. This is a press which will save on makeready time and on paper waste costs.”
Last year the company averaged 2,500 makereadies per machine. Mr Jones argues that even a 1% shaving in makeready (and it is likely to be more) and 100 sheets per job coupled with a higher running speed will impact significantly on the bottom line.
“Sheetfed long perfecting is now pushing down the barriers with web production. The web market has been decimated by closures and only the serious players remain. We have to compete with them and the XL 105 perfector will allow us to do so.”
Reduced paper waste is also an appealing prospect from an environmental perspective and it is an important issue that has led the Merthyr Tydfil company to secure ISO 14001:2004 accreditation and FSC (SGS-COC-003625) and PEFC (PECF/16-33-254) Chain of Custody certification alongside its ISO 9001 quality rating. Most products are printed on 70-130gsm papers although with the double circumference impression cylinder the XL 105 can handle much heavier weight papers without fear of marking.
The company has also replaced two MBO folders with two Stahlfolder TH 82s, meaning that eight out of nine of its folders are now Heidelberg machines. These latest generation machines have proved highly successful and S&G is particularly enthusiastic about the pallet feeding capability.