Case study

Brookwood Press chooses Watkiss for high quality finishing

When John Garland and Stephen Blackmore were made redundant from the print company for whom they had clocked up more than sixty five years service between them, they decided to go it alone and set up Redhill based Brookwood Press in 1998.

Three years on, specialist set and pad work printers Brookwood has grown to become a 15 person operation that prides itself on a high quality service provided by a dedicated team.

Currently the majority of Brookwood Press’ work is NCR and set work where the usual invoices, order pads and delivery notes proliferate. These are produced on the company’s single and two colour Heidelberg presses, and there are plans to buy a Heidelberg five colour machine in the near future.

Like any other printer worth its salt, Brookwood Press is very aware that there is a lot more to producing forms, brochures and so on than the actual printing process and excellent finishing techniques are high on its agenda.

Having tried to work with an alternative collator when the business was first established, Brookwood decided to purchase a Watkiss Vario benchtop collator. John Garland says:

"The previous collator was cheaper than the Watkiss, but was simply not man enough for the job and frequently picked up doubles or mis-fed documents. When we first set up, we naturally tried to save costs wherever we could. However this proved to be a short-sighted decision and we are absolutely delighted with the decision to switch to Watkiss."

The benchtop Watkiss Vario with six SlimVAC bins at Brookwood is being used for more than eight hours per day, every day. John Garland readily admits:

"We take liberties with it! However we never had any problems and it’s a very user friendly machine."

Having been in the print business virtually all their working lives, Brookwood’s owners knew the marketplace and the available equipment well. So, when they came to reviewing collating machines, Watkiss, which has been in business in Bedfordshire for more than 25 years, was naturally on the list.

There were many factors that made Watkiss the right solution for Brookwood Press’ collating needs. Operating from a 5,000 square feet building, space is at a premium so the Vario’s small footprint at only 0.52m² was a useful attribute. The price was also competitive, another important feature, especially to a fledgling business like Brookwood’s.

However, its overriding advantage has been its efficiency. Despite the huge throughput that the machine handles, all jobs go through and are collated correctly first time, every time.

John Garland concludes:

"While everyone in the print business knows that it’s tough, I think it’s particularly challenging for new companies like ours. Our reputation is only as good as the last job we produce and our profitability is driven by our ability to complete jobs efficiently. The Watkiss collator has enabled us to produce excellent work for our customers with the knowledge that we never have to repeat jobs so that we can price extremely competitively and still make money."