20 percent more turnover expected / P
roduct and service quality decisive
Basingstoke Press, near London, UK, is replacing 16 Xerox and
IBM machines with nine Digimasters of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen
AG (Heidelberg), five the existing 9110 model and four of the new
faster 9150s. These will be the first Digimaster 9150 150 page per
minute machines installed in world. All of the lines will be in
place by the end of the year.
The 6.5 million pound turnover Basingstoke Press has litho,
colour digital and black and white digital facilities with a great
many jobs using more than one technology. In the current investment
round the company has looked specifically at the black and white
digital market, recognising that the ten year old equipment that
was once at the vanguard of the industry must now be replaced by
more up to date technology.
The company uses its digital black and white division
primarily for technical documentation, including airline manuals,
and other print work which requires to be accurate and updateable.
Investigations into re-equipping the plant began ten months
ago when four suppliers - Xerox, IBM, Danka and Heidelberg - were
invited to tender.
"We needed to lower our cost base, increase our efficiencies
and to be well positioned whether there is a drop off or an
increase in volumes," says sales and commercial director Tony
Gardiner. "We believe we could probably get 20 percent more sales
from our existing customers with this upgrade and the investment
will provide new sales opportunities."
Operations director Chris Murphy says: "We have had a good
relationship with Xerox over ten years but our relationship with
Heidelberg takes us to the next level. Heidelberg is the supplier
of our litho equipment and there is a benefit in moving towards
having a single source supplier in terms of negotiating position
and on-going service."
Production director Simon Bunyan says: "Heidelberg's front
end capabilities gives us something that we didn't have before. We
like their flexible approach and the proactive way they responded
to our needs. They are strong on variable data applications and
workflow and are committed to sharing future research and
development know-how.
"The workflow is so much better that we believe we will get
80-90 percent utilisation out of the machines rather than the
current 50-60 percent. By standardising on PDF, an industry format,
rather than a bespoke workflow we can give customers easy visual
access to their files. The quality is good and these machines can
print lower grammage stocks.
For futher information:
Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG
Corporate Communications
Matthias Hartung
Tel.: +49 (0)6221 92 50 77
Fax: +49 (0)6221 92 50 46
E-mail:
matthias.hartung@heidelberg.com