CASE STUDY

(reprinted courtesy of OneStop magazine)

Watkiss finishing benefits go public.

It’s not every day you hear of a printing operation that has been built on the back of a finishing system, but a Watkiss booklet maker installed at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council three years ago ignited a reinvestment programme that revived the printing division from what was once a copy shop to the state-of-the-art digital booklet making enterprise it is today.

Simon Adamson, Design and Print Manager
at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council

The first phase of the Watkiss installation involved the delivery of an eight station Vario SlimVAC suction fed collator with offset stacking jogger for standard collating jobs. Four months later, the printing department upgraded the system to include Watkiss BookMaster Pro, TrimMaster Pro and Auto SpineMaster modules. At the same time, the demand for digital finishing also prompted the business to add a further gathering station onto the Vario, thus turning the existing set-up into an eight station Watkiss Document Finishing System (DFS).

The Watkiss DFS is an intelligent complete booklet making system. Its Vario collating tower inserts covers and pre printed or colour stocks from any of the eight feeder bins; anywhere into the booklet; or collated sets before releasing it into the booklet maker. This then folds, staples and trims the digital sheets before creating a high-quality, professional ‘SquareBack’ finish with the SpineMaster module – all in one pass.

Simon Adamson, design and print manager, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council says: “Before installing the Watkiss DFS, we offered basic mono and colour copying services that added little value to the work we supplied to the public departments and charities we service. We had two excellent designers and were able to print good quality digital sheets on our existing Océ printer, but had no means of turning printed sheets into quality books. We therefore used third party suppliers to produce the majority of work we supplied.

“Customers were not really happy with the turnaround times of outsourcing and this also presented financial difficulties with available budgets. As a result some customers would bypass our department altogether and send their work to print on their own machines, which would cause paper, labour and financial waste. In the light of these issues, we knew had to do something to bring the control back into our print room, so we began looking for ways of reinforcing our position by extending our service offering.”

Mr Adamson continues: “As soon as I saw the potential of the Watkiss DFS, I knew that it would take us in the direction we should be headed. In allowing us to produce professionally bound books with a SquareBack finish, the Watkiss DFS system has repositioned our business unit as a serious print finishing service provider.

“We have since renewed the print room equipment with the installation of two light production Konica Minolta colour engines and two high-volume Océ mono printers. The range of equipment we own mean we are now able to provide the vast majority of customer print requests internally. The DFS has enabled us to cut our outsourcing bill by 70 percent and we haven’t even had to take on more staff as a result. Efficiency and productivity is up, costs are down and turnaround times are shorter”.

In a move that will help improve processes even further in the future, the printing business unit of Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council will soon roll out an electronic job ticketing system, whereby jobs will be routed for processing via the most cost-effective printer based on business rules. This will help the council to oversee and manage every print run within the organisation and help meet the council’s strict procedures on reducing waste and expenditure.

The new set-up will mean the decision of where a job is sent to print will eventually be taken away from the employee; and state-of-the-art software will decide if to print locally, or send to the print room. Before embarking on this latest venture, Mr Adamson turned to the suppliers he knew had experience of working within the public sector to show him how; by networking equipment over different sites; an electronic job ticketing system can give the print room operator the power to select the most cost effective piece of equipment for the job in hand.

He says: “In addition to the job ticketing project, we are also currently liaising with Watkiss about the possibility of integrating the DFS to run online to our highest volume Océ printer, so that it can produce a SquareBack book as the print comes off the engine; thus making the workflow faster and even more streamlined.”

Since its installation at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, the Watkiss DFS has been responsible for producing around 200,000 SquareBack booklets. A typical application for the department is a 32pp A4 public information booklet made out of 100gsm stock with mono or colour text pages and a 200gsm full colour cover.

Chris Page, the Watkiss sales executive in charge of the project says: “The Watkiss DFS is an ideal machine for a small printing division like the enterprise at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council. It runs with very little employee intervention; allows for fast and efficient job set up; and is capable of processing output from multiple print engines.

“As one of the most durable mid-range booklet makers on the market, the Watkiss DFS also produces a return on investment that is attractive to the budget-conscience public run operation.”

The printing division at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council employs five people and has been operating for more than 30 years.