5-Colour Lithrone Enables B1 Printing Market Entry

The entry in to the B1 printing market will be made possible for printing firm Purbrooks with a new five-colour Komori Lithrone S40 press with in-line coater, IR drier and extended delivery.

The new press, which replaces a five-colour B2 Heidelberg Speedmaster press, is part of a GBP1.5m investment across in pre-press, print and finishing technology by the Wimbledon Park (UK) company.

With run lengths decreasing but pagination increasing, Purbrooks needed a press that was competitive producing 100-page - 200-page brochures in run lengths from 500 copies to 20,000 copies.

The Lithrone S40 is claimed to provide a fast make-ready that is suitable for -short runs and quick turn-around work.

Purbrooks opted for an in-line coater and extended drier to give the flexibility to add and dry special finishes at speed to ensure fast delivery to the company's clients.

Jan Prokop, Purbrooks' managing director, said: "The move in to B1 is a major strategic step for us.

It will double our capacity and allows us to produce work, much more cost effectively than before.

Our existing client base of blue chip professional and public service companies is a ready market as they are major specifiers of high-quality, multi-page, marketing print and, of course, we can now support a wider market with an added-value, specialised service across both B2 and B1 formats.

The investment has been driven very much by the change in the work our clients want these days and their emphasis on higher pagination quality marketing products." Prokop continued: "We don't compromise on anything, which is why we chose Komori's B1 press.

It had to be a press that we could rely on for the next 10 years and we couldn't afford to make a mistake.

We planned the selection process in minute detail comparing like for like and, ultimately, the Komori Lithrone S40 is the best B1 press on the market at this time." The firm tested presses from three manufacturers with seven print jobs from plate imaging through to the print output.

And Prokops explained: "The same project, which would take us 14 hours on our existing B2 presses, took seven hours on one press and only 2.5 hours on the Komori Lithrone S40.

The press's colour management features meant we reached the target quality within a few sheets on each job.

After seven jobs the Lithrone produced only 12" of waste paper, compared to two pallets of waste produced by the other presses - and that has a significant impact in terms of time, cost, environmentally and on the profitability of the business.

It's important that we can sell as many impressions as we can.

The Komori press stands apart in that has been designed from scratch to provide what printers need today." Purbrooks uses Fuji Pro-T processless plates, vegetable oil based inks and all aluminium is recycled, in addition to the new Komori press running alcohol free.

Purbrooks places a great deal of importance on environmental control.

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