Tradeprint, part of the Cimpress group, has expanded its production capabilities and capacity with investment in a Horizon StitchLiner MK III from IFS.
Founded in 1997, Tradeprint, in Dundee, works with print, marketing, and creative professionals. Offering an upload and print service it produces both litho and digital print.
The operation chose a Horizon StitchLiner MKIII to manage increasingly varied job run lengths and a wider range of applications.
Peter Richards, production manager, explains: “We required additional capacity and we wanted to extend the range of products we can produce in house. We have run Horizon StitchLiners previously and, given their good reputation and the quality of product they help us produce, we made the commitment to invest in the StitchLiner MkIII.”
He continues: “We went to see it in action at Horizon’s European demo centre in Germany last year. There were several improvements. They included easier handling of A4 landscape work and greater sheet control through improved air flow, particularly for sheets with a lot of ink. There were also enhancements in the accumulators, folding and trimming that all combine to enable increased productivity and higher quality results. This is especially so for A6 work.”
Software changes have also made a big difference: “Being able to alter speeds and sizes on the fly allows work to continue uninterrupted.”
Tradeprint’s 6,000 sheets per hour system includes the new high capacity VAC-L600H collators and their 130mm deep trays. They are more than double the depth of the 55mm trays on 10 station collators. This equates to 2.3 times less down time for loading and greater uptime. The new collators can handle a wider range of substrates enabling greater flexibility and their intelligent operation allows them to feed digital work that has been printed `in page order’. It also has the option of Ultrasonic detection and a double length delivery stream.
“It is running very well,” concludes Richards. “It is efficient, and our operators are happier knowing how seamlessly it can produce work.”
