Stoke-on-Trent full service print specialist Sherwin Rivers Ltd has invested in a Horizon SPF-200A highly automated bookletmaker with two Horizon VAC-1000 collating towers from IFS.
The system replaces a 20-year old Horizon bookletmaker and Managing Director Steven Stanley comments: “We ran the old system for many years and it had very little downtime. That made choosing another Horizon easy. We only made the decision to upgrade because we had started producing a 72-page booklet and we didn’t have enough collator capacity. We were collating a section and then dropping it on which was time-consuming.
“Since we installed the bookletmaker the 72-page job takes half the time. In the first three days we completed almost 11,000 booklets. It sets up in three minutes as opposed to 15 to 20 and it is so easy to change over book sizes.
“We were used to running a five-day week on the old bookletmaker and now we only need to run a four-day week. That means we have much more capacity and can start looking for new work.”
The operation was founded in 1911 and became Sherwin Rivers Ltd in 1969. Today, it produces a wide range of services from leaflets and brochures, to stationery, banners and signage. It runs Heidelberg litho presses, Xerox digital presses and Roland wide format systems.
The highly automated Horizon SPF-200A is capable of producing 4,500bph. The JDF-ready system offers instant set-ups via a large icon-based colour touchscreen for user-friendly operation. The screen can be used for on-the-run fine tune adjustments as well as the store and recall of up to 200 jobs.
The VAC-1000 performs a wide range of applications at high productivity, with flexible, powerful programming and user-friendly operation.
The Horizon wasn’t an automatic choice as Steven explains: “We did look at other suppliers but we kept coming back to the Horizon’s build quality. It is also simple and fast to set up. The fact the old Horizon was reliable for so long was another big plus for us.”
As for return on investment he states: “To be honest that wasn’t a big consideration. We are continuously reviewing and updating our services and solutions.
“We knew we had to replace the older system and after looking at what was available the Horizon SPF-200A was the best choice for us. We do think, though, that it is likely that it will have paid for itself in two years.”
