Southampton commercial print business Solent Design Studio Ltd has revamped its folding capabilities with investment in a Horizon AFC-566A folder from Intelligent Finishing Systems.
The fully-automatic folder which replaces an aging system made an immediate impact explains Craig Reynolds, production director: “Just the time it takes to set up a job has made a big difference. The job memory storage is a big bonus. We get a few repeat jobs and this saves a lot of time.
“We also have one job where the roller pressure is adjusted. Before this manually took a long time to prepare. Now it is just the touch of a button. We are also confident in offering more challenging possibilities to clients now.
The Horizon AFC-566 offers 17 fold patterns which are set up via an icon-based touchscreen. All roller gap settings are then performed automatically by inserting a single sheet at the calliper. Solent Design Studio’s system handles litho print from two B3 Ryobis, a four colour and a two colour, and digital print from a Xerox 700i and a Nuvera.
Reynolds first saw the folder a few years ago when the operation was searching a bookletmaking line. It chose a Horizon SPF20a from IFS: “We saw the folder and had a demo then. We bought the booklet line and that ran really well so when it came to investing in a folder we knew Horizon, we could see it was quick and easy to set up so the decision was made. We also bought a cross folder unit. This is something we were doing very slowly by hand. Now it is a much faster process.”
The capability allows Solent Design Studio to offer its clients a wider choice of products. Comments Reynolds: “We can now think more creatively about what we can offer our clients. We have explained to our design team what the folder can do and now they are working on developing a range of different options. This is opening up conversations that we can have with clients which shows we are investing in them too. They are also interested to see what other type of work we are doing.”
He concludes: “It is now a process we don’t have to worry about. It is one less headache. I wish we had more folding jobs.”
