Having bought a previous Speedmaster from Heidelberg during the 1990s, Moore Gallagher has seen the press go past 140 million impressions, and it’s still going strong.
So when capacity and customer demand for increased colour, particularly in the A3 market, meant that the company needed to look at investing, it turned to Heidelberg once more.
The new press was installed in July and has been running smoothly since. Moore Gallagher’s general manager of printing operations, Tim Reid says that the company was confident in Heidelberg’s offering. So much so that by the time Heidelberg showed them a SM52 in operation in late 2004, Moore Gallagher was already fairly committed to making the purchase.
“Although we had looked at other presses, it was clear that Heidelberg was a better fit for us, and the performance of our existing press was a good indication of what we would be getting.”
Running 24 hour shifts, five days a week, Moore Gallagher certainly makes demands of its presses, and so far the new press has lived up to them, according to Reid.
“We are very positive about the performance of the new press. It has certainly lived up to expectations,” he says.
The installation of the new Speedmaster means that Moore Gallagher continues to run only Heidelberg equipment on the sheetfed side of its operation. The company also runs seven web presses.
In addition to the new press, Moore Gallagher has installed a Heidelberg CTP solution, which signals the company’s first move away from film. The Prosetter 74, visible light platesetter produces 20 SM52 plates per hour running off Heidelberg’s Prinect MetaDimension RIP workflow.
The changeover came about as a result of demand from the market and for the quality gains that are to be had from CTP, Reid says. Additional productivity is another bonus that comes with the installation.
The change from film to CTP has been simple and straightforward, according to Reid, with little adjustment necessary to existing workflows to accommodate the new system.
A custom-made plate punch that was specially sourced by Heidelberg for Moore Gallagher has helped to make the process even smoother in terms of getting plates on-press.
With some 330 staff around the country including both the printing and mailing sides of the business, Moore Gallagher is a large and demanding organisation and the addition of highly automated, highly efficient equipment has been critical to its continued success.
