UNISON’s Leeds in-house print facility has picked a Horizon StitchLiner 5500 from Intelligent Finishing Systems to help it expand its business reach.

Today it runs a five colour Ryobi 525GX litho press and completes a range of products from booklets to newsletters.

Explains Richard Walton Print Room Manager: “We are now able to offer our services to all 12 regions and all 1,000 branches. We currently work with around 300 branches and the flexibility and ease of use of the StitchLiner will enable us to reach more. It will double our finishing capacity and allow us to complete a greater number of short runs more quickly.”

He continues: “The main bulk of our work is newsletters as that is the way the majority of our branches communicate with their members. The StitchLiner easily produces 8, 12 and 16 page newsletters from 300 copies to 15,000.”

Other solutions were considered says Walton: “We had a Duplo that was 11 years old and we did review other systems. We liked the StitchLiner for its robustness, ease of use and quick set up.

“We had a few days booked for training but we didn’t need much time at all. We have run a few jobs already and it has all gone really well so far.”

UNISON’s StitchLiner incorporates a high definition icon-based colour touchscreen for set-ups in less than two minutes. It can work from flat four-page sections, eliminating the need for separate bindery stages to be undertaken such as signature folding and guillotining.

Its integral ACF-30 Accumulator with scoring, plow-folding and heavy-duty HTS-30S Three-Knife Trimmer means there is no need to pre-fold into signatures or pre-cut sections top and tail – resulting in significant time, waste and energy savings.

Walton adds: “I will be retiring in about 15 or so years time and as the StitchLiner isn’t being run all day every day I fully expect it to outlast me and still expect it will achieve a good resale value.”