The MBO T 1420 large format folding machines at UKHO’s site in Taunton, Somerset
MBO’s barcode-driven set up was key to the choice of the two T1420 large format folders for the organisation’s switch to digital chart printing.
The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) is responsible for the worldwide distribution of nautical publications and services for the Royal Navy, merchant shipping and individual mariners. Urgent updates are issued as Navigational Warnings or chart-updating Notices to Mariners. The company is now producing all its charts digitally using HP PageWide XL printers.
‘We are in the middle of a major re-organisation,’ said Tom Scott-Clarke, UKHO’s supply operations manager. ‘The greater flexibility provided by the combination of digital printing and the two new MBO T 1420 large format folders now allows us to keep batch sizes down to around 20, as well as being able to ‘custom’ produce even single copies at short notice when requested.’
‘There can be great complexity in folding the charts,’ explained Mr Scott-Clarke. ‘The technology we required existed in MBO’s smaller folders, but not at the time in its large format versions. The task therefore became one of adapting the technology to large format, and this is what MBO has achieved for us with the two T1420 folders.
‘Both folders can take a sheet direct from their respective wide format digital colour printers de-curl it, and by reading a code that tells how the sheet should be folded, are capable of producing a different type of folded sheet, one after the other, every six seconds,’ he added.
