Tewkesbury Printing equips ‘top and tail’

Print Solutions

Tewkesbury Printing is re-equipping its pre-press and finishing to maximise its efficiency and productivity.

‘We are running an 18,000 sheets per hour Speedmaster XL 75-5+L with Inpress Control so our pressroom is very productive,’ said Andy Siddall, production manager and a director of the company. ‘We have put off decisions on pre-press and finishing but now the time is right to upgrade to faster, more productive equipment and software.’

The Prinect pre-press software is being upgraded to the latest, seventh generation Prepress Manager specifications which Tewkesbury saw at drupa. This software will enhance job preparation, including impositions and trapping right through to platemaking, the transfer of data to the press and will make pre-press a smoother operation.

In the finishing department a highly specified Polar 92N Plus will be delivered in the next few weeks with a stacklift uploader, jogger and stacklift downloader. This system replaces a 15 year old model which will be sold on. Now the company will benefit from the easy Opti-knife knife changing device and enhanced job data storage as well as the more sophisticated touchscreen user interface.

Although Tewkesbury Printing did once deviate to a rival folder, it quickly returned to Heidelberg and once again it has selected the Stahlfolder and this time a buckle BH66 semi-automatic. It replaces a combination folder and has been selected because of the success the company has had with a continuous feeder buckle machine. ‘It is more accurate and faster,’ said Andy. ‘We have a good relationship with Heidelberg because it gives us a fair deal and both the equipment and service is reliable.’

All the equipment will be used to produce brochures, leaflets and point of sale material as well as other commercial work. It will also enhance the digital and mailing operation.

Tewkesbury is also adding a B2 sheetfed laminator to speed up production times for litho and digital laminated work.