10-colour Heidelberg presses boost productivity

Bishops Printers is taking delivery of two 10-colour presses in the next two months which means it will have a total of 52 Heidelberg Speedmaster printing units.

That press roster will include four 10-colour presses and two five-colour machines.

Bishops Printers of Portsmouth, UK is one of the largest commercial printers in the south of England with a workforce of 140 employees.

Gareth Roberts, managing director of Bisphop Printers, has invested in 20 new Heidelberg Speedmaster B2 printing units.

The Speedmaster XL 75-10 P and the Speedmaster SM 74-10 P will increase productivity and bring greater efficiency.

The investment in one replacement press and one additional press, a Speedmaster XL 75-10-P and an SM74-10-P respectively, is made on the basis of increased trading during 2009 and not just speculation about an upturn, said Heidelberg.

Gareth Roberts said: 'We had exhausted every avenue of adding shifts and manning to increase productivity but realised that we had to add another press.

The XL 75, which replaces the first SM 74 10-colour we installed when we moved to this factory six years ago, will give us four additional (24-hour) days capacity a month through greater efficiency, but even this is not enough so we returned to Heidelberg for an SM 74-10-P, which is the perfect perfecting press for us, with it's redesigned feeder, inking and damping unit and the improved delivery.

These two presses give us the ideal combination for our general commercial market, enabling us to easily handle a range of run lengths and boards even up to carton stocks.

Bishops looks set to report a turnover of around GBP13 million for the year ended 31 January, up on the GBP11.8m for the previous year.

The company, which has an average order size of GBP900, has not one customer contributing more than five per cent of its sales.

Twenty-five per cent of its customers did reduce spending last year but remained loyal.

Bishops spent twice as much on marketing last year and focused on improving its customer services and it is on the back of this it attributes its growth.

The company handles a range of work including leisure and tourism, education, periodicals and general commercial work, much of it from third party agencies.

It has settled on the 10-unit press configuration for the majority of orders because it provides one pass productivity and, for silk paper and orders of over GBP300, a seal is applied as standard, which gives work an aesthetic lift and faster turn-around times.

Roberts explained: 'We are giving customers what they want and pricing competitively but on a sustainable basis.

We have good customer loyalty and good staff loyalty because they know the company provides relative securing and progression.

We also have a relatively youthful management team and Board members who want to make a positive impression on the direction of the company.

Bishops has also made investments in its bindery, including a Stitchmaster ST450, a Stahlfolder TH 82 and two Domino numbering machines.

Roberts said: 'The SM 74-10-P going out has clocked up 270 million impressions in six years and proved superbly reliable.

By regularly updating we believe we reduce or eliminate breakdown costs and maximise productivity.

The latest generation presses are impressively productive and printers today have to be efficient to compete.

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