Offset Printing

Spectrum chooses to carbon neutralise its new Speedmaster XL

Thursday 03. October 2013 - Spectrum Printing Services was an early adopter of Speedmaster XL 75 technology five years ago. It returned to Heidelberg for another five-colour with coater which was installed at its Leicester factory last month. This time round it has elected to carbon neutralise the press.

The company made a visit to Heidelberg at the end of last year with no intention of buying at the time but when it saw the efficiency it could achieve the decision was made.
“Technology has moved on. Our first machine was specified with Axis Control but this time we selected the more automated Inpress Control and we have also taken Autoplate XL and FilterStar and linked the press up to the Prinance MIS and prepress. Makereadies on the first XL take about 15 minutes but on this latest press it’s reduced to just 3 to 5 minutes and every job we throw at it runs at the full 15,000sph,” says Karl Nicholson, co-partner of Spectrum.
The new XL 75-5+L replaced a SM74-6 which was sold via a dealer to China for a “good price”.
The new press, which operates around the clock, is so productive that the existing XL 75 is now just working a night shift only. This allows the company to retain its competitiveness in a hard fought market but the unfortunate consequence was that four redundancies were necessary. Both presses run with one operator and one shared assistant per shift.
“When we undertook the Print Colour Management programme on the new press the operators had to switch back to the old XL 75 and there were groans; they really like Inpress Control,” says Paul Clifton who has been the business partner of Karl Nicholson for seven years and who has been with the company for 25 years. “I wish we had had it on the first press. It’s a very powerful tool.”
The company is ISO 14001 certified and very environmentally minded. It was already using carbon balanced papers and welcomed the opportunity to also carbon neutralise its press by investing though Heidelberg in a sustainability project which counters the amount of carbon used in the manufacture of the press. This is a scheme available as an affordable option on all Speedmaster presses.
Spectrum is a high quality commercial printer, producing a wide range of work including brochures, folders, leaflets, Report and Accounts and other quality commercial work.