West London print group Penrose has invested in a Horizon BQ-270V single-clamp perfect binder from IFS in order to bring binding in-house.
The print and digital company, founded in 1957, counts Aon, Axa Insurance, Callaway, Cisco, Panasonic and Yamaha among the brands it works with. It produces litho print on a Heidelberg SpeedMaster and digital print on two Xerox Versant presses.
The operation was awarded a council grant during the pandemic and it was decided that adding perfect binding would be beneficial in a number of ways.
Managing director Layne Penrose said, ‘We found we were sending more and more perfect binding out, so being able to complete the work in-house means we can be faster and more competitive, winning more work in the process and so driving increased value to other areas of the business. For this reason, we anticipate achieving a full return on our investment fairly quickly.
‘We offer more than just printing to our clients, with other services including creative design, marketing, data processing, mailing distribution and digital asset management services. We want to partner with our clients across a range of disciplines, and this was another reason for investing in the perfect binder.’
‘We chose the Horizon based on the rationale that it would be simple to use and easy to set up. We also liked the very good quality of the bind and the strength of the glue. It gives us the quality that we need.’
The 500cph Horizon BQ-270V supports on-demand production of variable thickness books. It includes an automated, sensor-activated digital caliper system which measures book block thickness and automatically transfers this data to the binder for quick set-up for books of different thicknesses.
