Finishing & Screen Printing

Superior beefs up its cutting capacity for both litho and digital work

Wednesday 12. March 2014 - Design, print and fulfilment company Superior continues to improve its digital production with the addition of a Polar 78 N Plus guillotine. It has also enhanced throughput for litho printed products by adding a Transomat loading device to an existing Polar 115X.

Production director Stewart Powell says: “The Polar 78 replaces an EBA to give us a faster, more robust guillotine. It is five or six times faster and, coupled with its programmability, this allows us to cut at least three times the volume. Our digital work throughput has grown and we needed a guillotine better suited to the workload. Now one person can cut all the work in just a few hours where previously we had to run the machine for ten hours to complete the work.”
The Melksham company has a Nexpress so can handle quite long, personalised runs and it also handles board for point of sale contracts so the guillotine had to be robust.
The company has recently extended the litho side of the plant, creating a two storey facility for packing and hand finishing. This has freed up production space, improved the physical workflow and given the company the capacity to add the Transomat to its 115cm wide Polar cutter.
“How much more productive this materials handling makes us depends on the job,” says Mr Powell. “With shelf cards and small, multiple cut work we previously needed an assistant but now cutting is a one man job. On this type of work you could argue it had doubled our output but even on standard leaflets it could be 15 to 20% quicker. It is also more comfortable for the operator so you eliminate that fall off in output as the shift goes on as a result of tiredness.”
Superior likes the simplicity and effectiveness of Polar technology but also the regular servicing and safety checks that Heidelberg provides, keeping the equipment in good order and productive.