Route 1 orders three newly launched StitchLiner MarkIIIs

Print Solutions

Route1 Print has made a significant investment in fast turnaround short run production with the order of three Horizon StitchLiner MarkIIIs and a Horizon HT-1000V three knife trimmer from IFS.

As part of an overall summer investment of £4 million, the Rotherham trade printer will install the StitchLiners in July. They will be among the UK’s first delivery from Horizon in Japan.

Route1 Print produces litho and digital print on B1 and B2 Heidelbergs and Xerox iGens. There are also two large format HP Scitexs. The new systems were chosen to help launch a 24 hour dispatch service and support fast turnaround, short run book production.

Jack Wilmott, Route 1 Print brand manager, explained: ‘We want to introduce a 24 hour service and to do that we needed to enhance our short run book production. We need it to be faster and to meet the demand for shorter run work.’

The operation will replace a Muller Martini with the three lines. They will run alongside an existing StitchLiner 5500. Jack said, ‘We made the decision in January about where this cycle of capital expenditure would go. We looked at all the options on the market but we like the StitchLiners. They are easy to run and fast to set up. Our operators know them well so will be able to run them very smoothly.’

He continued, ‘We are expecting to turnover £30 million this year and we estimate that the new systems will increase our bookletmaking capacity by about 63%. They will give us more flexibility and streamline production now that everything is sheet work. We can get work on and off them much faster and that ensures quick and flexible production.’

The Horizon HT-1000V will near line finish books that are produced on the Horizon BQ470 installed last year. ‘When we put in the perfect binder it was much more productive than our old one,’ continued Jack. ‘We were getting a bottleneck in that area. The HT-1000V will eliminate that and help to ensure we are much more efficient.’