Finishing & Screen Printing

Jones & Brooks upgrades its finishing for quality and speed gains

Tuesday 17. July 2012 - "People require quality work and we needed a guillotine and folder that would allow us to supply that so we have chosen to purchase a Polar 78 and a Stahlfolder TH 56," says Ronnie Blair, managing director of Jones & Brooks, Rochdale. "We like the Prinect integration concept. We have already linked our Tharstern MIS into our production areas and we wanted finishing equipment we could add in to that process, too. Customers like to know where there work is and we have the ability to prioritise work by networking our production."

The Rochdale company which provides a wide range of commercial colour work and specialist printed products for hospitals will take delivery of the new, more robust and automated finishing equipment in the next six weeks.
“We had a small folder but we had to set up jobs each time, even on repeat work. The TH 56 has a facility to store programmes which means that in commonly used formats and for repeat orders we will minimise the set up times,” says Mr Blair. “The modularity of the Stahlfolder also means we have options to extend the line in future which also makes it future-proof.”
The Polar replaces a Perfecta guillotine although that machine will be kept to handle rough, adhesive pad work. The old folder is also retained as back up. However, a new production space has been cleared and created for the new finishing kit which will run to the plant’s double day shift pattern.
“Heidelberg is old established, with a good name and we’ve been very, very happy with them,” says Mr Blair. The company runs Speedmaster SM 52s in its pressroom.
Jones & Brooks is a 135 year old family run business which is ISO 9001 quality accredited. It says that despite public sector cutbacks its work for the NHS nationwide has been largely unaffected.