Council Seeks Total In-House Print Again

Stockport Council has invested £200,000 in its printing services unit in a bid to regain 100 per cent of its outsourced colour printing.

Stockport Council has invested £200,000 in its printing services unit in a bid to regain 100 per cent of its outsourced colour printing.

To meet the expected increase the council has ordered two B3 Shinohara 52IIP two-colour convertible-to-perfecting presses from Graphic Arts Equipment (GAE).

Both Shinohara presses will be fitted with alcohol damping units with Technotrans cooling dosing units and, according to Stockport Council print services manager Tony Warner the presses, "will enable an immediate return of at least 25 per cent of our out placed work which could amount to savings of around £150,000 per year." Warner joined the Council in July following a 15-year career in commercial printing with companies such as Polestar, Bath Press, Anthony Rowe, and Martins Print Group.

"I wanted a fresh challenge.

The printing department had suffered from a lack of investment over the years and this had led to more work being outsourced because the litho equipment within the unit was not capable of producing high quality colour.

We now have new premises and a digital unit has been set-up to handle fast turnaround work such as council agenda's, timetables and short run colour work.

We are now actively looking at investing in our finishing section to further improve workflow and increase overall turnaround times," he said.

He and his team spent several months evaluating presses from all of the major manufacturers but finally came down in favour of the Shinohara presses because Shinohara has an excellent reputation for build quality, performance and cost effectiveness in the B3 market sector said Warner "In addition to both build and print quality, Shinohara presses can hold their own against almost any other leading press in the market and come with tremendous service and support from GAE.

Everybody we spoke to about their dealings with GAE couldn't have been more enthusiastic about them both as a company and as a service organisation," he said.

Both of the presses to be installed at Stockport Council will include automated benefits such as blanket wash, automated ink roller wash, semi-automated plate change and perfecting changeover, remote operation control, heavy-duty rolling power, high precision dot definition and production speeds up to 15,000 impressions per hour said GAE.

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