Buckingham general commercial printer BCQ Group has brought all its perfect binding in-house with investment in a smart binding system comprising of a Horizon BQ470 four clamp perfect binder and a Horizon HT1000V variable trimmer supplied by Intelligent Finishing Systems.
Alan Pond, Commercial Director, explains: “We had a specific requirement for perfect binding. We had one client who we were pursuing for some considerable time but were unable to convert as we had an older perfect binder we were having to subcontract a lot of work out. Now we don’t need to – we have everything we need.”
The business works with a broad range of local and national operations including automotive, agencies and charities. Adds Pond: “I expect us to be more competitive, a great deal more flexible and be able to offer a better service to our customers.
“The quality of the product is better. We will be able to plan, print and complete work the way it ought to be done, rather than the way it had to be done prior.
“We will no longer have to send work out. We can finish the jobs in the order they are produced and turn them around quickly. We don’t have to plan for, or wait for them to be sent out and returned. This also makes production more cost effective.”
The small-footprinted 1,350 books per hour PUR BQ-470 four-clamp perfect binder joins a Horizon StitchLiner 5500 used for both litho and digital production. It is ideally suited to mid-range soft back book production with higher production speeds, instant make readies for runs-of-one. It can bind up to 65 mm thickness and offers fully automated set-up through an intuitive icon based LCD touchscreen.
Other systems were considered but the Horizon BQ470 was chosen for a number of reasons explains Pond: “We have a long standing relationship with IFS and we like Horizon solutions. The touchscreen set up makes operation simple so our bindery staff can effortlessly move from one system to another. It also has a compact footprint so finding room on the bindery floor was easy.”
The Horizon HT1000V was chosen to run inline for smooth uninterrupted, single operator production. Says Pond: “We wanted to have a complete solution where you can feed and leave. One person can run it. With its variable set up it can change the spine thickness and sizes of the books which makes short run book production quick and easy.”
The Horizon HT1000V variable three-knife trimmer produces high quality variable short-run and book of one production at up to 1,000 books per hour. It can handle untrimmed and trimmed sizes, up to 65mm thick. It features a uniquely designed user-friendly interface that enables intuitive operation and fine-tune adjustment. 200 jobs can be memorized for repeat orders or special applications and it allows automatic set up on the fly via a barcode at the entrance of the trimmer.”
Pond concludes: “We now have greater control, can keep all the revenue in-house and we are much more flexible. It is too early to tell what the return on investment will be. We knew the savings we will make but not how much we will benefit from being able to win new business.”
