Pureprint’s installations of a Horizon Stitchliner Mark III in early 2022 and a Muller Martini Primera in June have helped the company make significant productivity gains on the line.

The investment has come as part of a larger series of installations, including a 10-colour Heidelberg XL 106 B1 press in February, that the Uckfield-headquartered eco-friendly print and marketing company hopes will help it take advantage of the post-Covid increase in business.

Mark Handford, group CEO of Pureprint, told Printweek: “It’s been a pretty busy time, to be honest.”

Pureprint has now managed to increase productivity on its digital line by 200% - exceeding expectations of a 150% uplift - with the Stitchliner installation, and has even retained the Duplo 5000 the Horizon machine replaced besides.

The Primera, running at 14,000cph, likewise provided a 125% increase in productivity over Pureprint’s 10-year-old Muller Martini Bravo stitcher.

Handford said: “My manufacturing guys just went out and looked at the market to see what was around.”

While the Horizon was a brand new purchase from Intelligent Finishing Systems (IFS), the Muller came as a stroke of luck to Pureprint’s buyers.

“We were actually looking at the specifications,” said Handford, “and a 2020 machine became available when York closed, so we managed to acquire it from York Mailing - it was only a year old, and as you can imagine had hardly done any work as well."

Craig Berresford, manufacturing director at Pureprint, said the new Stitchliner Mark III had been a “fantastic success” running on a 24-hour continental shift pattern.

“It’s helped us fulfil our general commercial work and has increased our capacity in web-to-print  work,” he added.

The two stitching machines join a host of other equipment added in the past 18 months, including two HP Indigo 100Ks, the 10-colour B1 Heidelberg, and several binding machines.

“We’re talking millions of pounds, not hundreds of thousands,” Handford said, adding that the company’s manufacturing team was keen to go out and test new equipment.

“Our guys are very heavily invested in the R&D process, so they’ll be out there - I know they’re out with suppliers next week looking at inkjet stuff, which is something that is definitely on our horizon moving forward.”