“We used to send some of our work out such as binding and complex- or mini-folders but needed to keep as much work as possible in-house,” said operations director Matthew Plant. “Bringing the work in-house enables us to keep quality under control, keep costs down and improve lead times. We have reduced makeready times from 15 or 20 minutes to five minutes.” Plant said the kit, which replaced an older Stahlfolder Ti 52, cost around £100,000 but the savings would make it a cost neutral purchase. The new Stahlfolder would allow the 50-staff business to keep closed gate-folded leaflets, two-up work and folded 16-page sections for PUR binding, he explained. His team looked at kit from three manufacturers and was won over by the Stahlfolder’s automation and ability to store programmes. Plant wanted operator “buy-in” so after checking out the options at Drupa took the finishing team to demos at the suppliers. “They saw the advantages of the Stahlfolder especially improvements in efficiency,” said Plant, whose cross-media business in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, has bumped up turnover more than a third to over £4m in two years through print, marketing and video. “We are expanding, we are diversifying and we are trying to make print come alive again,” said Plant. “But people who chase turnover are going about it the wrong way. It’s about sustaining what we have and always striving for perfection.”...

The printers, which offer speeds of 80ppm and 65ppm respectively, are being showcased for the first time in Europe at the Grafitalia show starting today, and will receive their UK launches at North Print & Pack later this month. According to the manufacturer the two new presses are designed to bridge the gap between Ricoh’s existing light and heavy production machines: the Ricoh Pro C651, Pro C751 and the Pro C901 Graphic Arts+. Unique to the C5110S and C5100S however is a newly developed toner formation and an enhanced toner transfer technology. Ricoh stated that the new toner formation increased the colour gamut by 10% compared with its Pro C751 series, and fused at lower temperatures to offer quicker warm up times and so increased productivity. Meanwhile a newly improved “flexible and versatile fusing assembly” is designed to enable high quality printing on challenging substrates such as envelopes. Graham Moore, Ricoh’s director of business development for the Production Printing Group in the EMEA region commented that, though Ricoh continually sought to enhance existing models, the latest upgrades would not be directly transferrable to the C5110S and C5100S’s predecessors. “It’s not always possible to make presses retrospectively changeable,” he said. “These enhancements won’t be directly transferred onto current models, but we will continue to enhance the portfolio as we move forward.” Moore added that, although both models boasted compact footprints of 835 x 880 x 1230mm and ease of use features such as LED indicators to alert operators to urgent tasks and interfaces with animated instructions, both were squarely aimed at the production printing market. He added: “Their physical footprints are more similar to those of the corporate environment and the production speeds might seem similar to an office model, but these have absolutely got production attributes, so fit within the production class range.” “Everything from development, media configuration, distribution and support is consistent with our higher production presses.” The C5110S and C5100S will be commercially available this year in Q2 (July-Sept) of the manufacturer’s financial year, with pricing yet to be confirmed....

The printers, which offer speeds of 80ppm and 65ppm respectively, are being showcased for the first time in Europe at the Grafitalia show starting today, and will receive their UK launches at North Print & Pack later this month. According to the manufacturer the two new presses are designed to meet the needs of lower volume users wanting high print quality combined with production speeds and a small physical footprint. They sit at the entry level of Ricoh’s digital cut sheet press portfolio, followed by the Ricoh Pro C651, Pro C751 and the Pro C901 Graphic Arts+. Unique to the C5110S and C5100S however is a newly developed toner formation and an enhanced toner transfer technology. Ricoh stated that the new toner formation increased the colour gamut by 10% compared with its Pro C751 series, and fused at lower temperatures to offer quicker warm up times and so increased productivity. Meanwhile a newly improved “flexible and versatile fusing assembly” is designed to enable high quality printing on challenging substrates such as envelopes. Graham Moore, Ricoh’s director of business development for the Production Printing Group in the EMEA region commented that, though Ricoh continually sought to enhance existing models, the latest upgrades would not be directly transferrable to the C5110S and C5100S’s predecessors. “It’s not always possible to make presses retrospectively changeable,” he said. “These enhancements won’t be directly transferred onto current models, but we will continue to enhance the portfolio as we move forward.” Moore added that, although both models boasted compact footprints of 835x880x1,230mm and ease of use features such as LED indicators to alert operators to urgent tasks and interfaces with animated instructions, both were squarely aimed at the production printing market. He added: “Their physical footprints are more similar to those of the corporate environment and the production speeds might seem similar to an office model, but these have absolutely got production attributes, so fit within the production class range.” “Everything from development, media configuration, distribution and support is consistent with our higher production presses.” The C5110S and C5100S will be commercially available this year in Q2 (July-Sept) of the manufacturer’s financial year, with pricing yet to be confirmed....

The cutter’s unique selling point, according to UK distributor Leopold Professional Imaging, is its price point which, it claims, is half that of other market-leading flatbed cutting tables. The 1.6m x 3m flatbed cutter retails at £55,000. Included in the price is a one horse power motor, software, a computer interface, installation and delivery and three tool heads from a range including an oscillating knife, fixed knife, kiss-cut knife and creasing tool. Another highlight, according to the distributor, was the cutter’s “robust” build and the possibility of upgrading the router motor used to a three horse power fitting for cutting particularly challenging substrates. First buyer of the new machine in the UK, A3M Designs reported that a key attraction was its low-noise vacuum system that has six individual pumps for ease of use should one pump fail. “The reduced noise is a massive factor,” said co-owner at A3M Ken Green. “It’s also simply the way it’s put together, it is just very impressive – it looks like its going to last.”...

“Previously this was an untouchable area, but its something our customers and staff have been crying out for,” said Paperlinx UK managing director Phil Carr. “Effectively we’ve had the restructuring process where we’ve merged three sales teams into one, one of the critical components of that process was to have an identity for that single sales team. We have that now.” The rebrand of Howard Smith, Robert Horne and PaperCo to Paperlinx follows a number of restructuring measures, which resulted in around 190 job losses and culminated in the consolidation of the three merchanting arms sales teams in to one account management team late last year. As of last Friday, Howard Smith, Robert Horne and PaperCo, sales offices began answering phones as Paperlinx. “The exciting thing for our customers and, I have to say, our sales team, is that they now have the opportunity to have a single relationship, rather than multiple relationships and the opportunity to trade all of products,” said Carr. The three merchanting brands will continue to exist, on paper at least, as invoices will still be sent from the three individual trading legal companies, at least until the companies are merged into one single legal entity. However, Carr stressed that there were no short term plans to create a single legal structure. By continuing to trade Howard Smith, Robert Horne and PaperCo as legal entities, Paperlinx will continue to be able offer three lines of credit. “Most of our customers have been running with multiple accounts anyway, and that’s been the problem operationally, because in many instances we had three sales reps calling on the same customer – it just didn’t make sense,” said Carr. “What the customer wants is to be able say I want that product, that product and that product. The fact that they come from three different places [for invoicing purposes], they don’t mind, as long as we’re utilising the best lines of credit for them they’re getting the same service, the same terms, the same everything – as far as they’re concerned it’s a win-win,” he added. However, Carr stressed that the company would take a pragmatic view on the issuing of credit across the three lines. “We’ve been making decisions on credit based on our exposure across the whole UK for a long time, irrespective of where a customers account is. When I became UK finance director I insisted that we set up a UK credit committee for precisely that reason, so instead of making three different credit decisions for a customer, we make one in the background and that’s something we’ve been doing for a number of years.” Carr dismissed some customers fears that the operational changes to...