After confirming a £2.1 million spend at the start of the year, Managing Director Gareth Roberts has announced an additional multi-million-pound investment.
Gareth Roberts, Bishops Printers Managing Director
It’s also about making decisions at the right time, according to the Bishops MD, so that they’re able to remain competitive and responsive to market conditions. “We’ve taken the time to assess the mix of work that we’re winning, and where the opportunities lie, and for us it isn’t in diversification”.
With demand for shorter print runs and reduced pagination, Bishops are strengthening their digital printing capability by replacing a B3 HP Indigo 7800 with a B2 HP Indigo 100K. Capable of printing 6,000 sheets an hour while delivering print quality that looks and feels like offset, it means Bishops will have two B2 Indigos by the end of October.
Complimenting this £1 million investment, will be a new Horizon BQ-500 iCE perfect binding machine, supplied by UK based Intelligent Finishing Systems Ltd. Costing around £250K, with its fast changeovers the Horizon is perfect for smaller run lengths and will enable Bishops to run their 16-station Kolbus perfect binder far more efficiently, while targeting the short run perfect bound market more aggressively.
“Bishops remains first and foremost a litho printer”, says Roberts, “and will continue to be for the foreseeable future”. To that end, Bishops has ordered a new XL 10-colour from Heidelberg. A replacement press for their oldest 10-colour, their Heidelberg press hall houses considerable capacity with four 10-colour XL75s, two 8-colour XL75s (all with AutoPlate Change and Inpress Control), and a 5-colour SX74.
Speaking about their long-term relationship, HEIDELBERG UK Managing Director, Ryan Miles, commented, “HEIDELBERG is proud to supply Bishops Printers with innovative and leading equipment and solutions. Bishops have always been at the forefront of technology, and through this latest investment they retain that advantage. Their drive for high quality, efficient and optimised production enables them to realise the true potential of their investments.”
While Roberts is acutely aware of industry news that has been dominated by fears of contractions, downturn, and business failures, he recently reminded Bishops’ 180 staff that the company is a good business. “We price fairly, we produce work we can be proud of, and we pay our people and suppliers on time. We should be confident about our future without being reckless, which is why I remain cautiously optimistic.”
Indeed, this latest round of investment might not be the last this year. Bishops is reportedly exploring options to add to, as well as replace, existing folding equipment to improve efficiency and turnaround times.
The Portsmouth based company has always seen ongoing capital investment as key to their success, and Roberts is quick to recognise the part that his staff’s hard work has played in creating the environment where they have the option to make these choices.
