Positive Images UK has enhanced its finishing capabilities to meet the demands of a changing work mix with the purchase of a highly automated Horizon SPF-200L bookletmaker and twoVAC-1000 tower collators from IFS.
The Mitcham, Surrey-based commercial print, direct mail and large format printer has a broad customer base that includes retail, medical, estate agency and insurance sectors. It offers online ordering capabilities via a number of portals which have driven an increase in fast turnaround litho, digital and large format print. The Horizon equipment finishes digital print from an HP Indigo 5500 and a Ricoh Pro 9200, plus work from three Heidelberg litho presses.
Production director Mike Sullivan explained that the investment was made to manage a changing work mix. ‘We have been working hard to diversify. We wanted to be all things to all people – more of a one-stop shop. To do that competently we needed to be able to deliver fast turnaround print on demand.
‘We had an older stitching line but that was suited to longer litho runs and took time to make ready. We needed something that was quick and easy to set up and that could easily complete short runs. The Horizon does just that. Only the other day we had a 2000 run 8-page A4 booklet, a 2000 run A4 12-page booklet and a 2000 run A5 32-page booklet. Before, those jobs would have taken us the best part of the day to complete. With the Horizon they took just over three hours.’
Mr Sullivan added the robustness and modular nature of the Horizon system were factors in its selection and confirmed that there have been no concerns since the Horizon SPF-FC200L was installed. “It has been reliable and there have been no issues at all.’
