Case Studies
THE REAL DEAL
iQ continues to rise with CP Bourg installation
iQ Laserpress of Guildford is a digital printer running seven Xerox presses and offering a round-the-clock service. The company has endeavoured to create a comprehensive on-demand finishing capability, and its latest investment is in a C.P. Bourg BB3002 perfect binder which has recently been installed by UK supplier TCS (Terry Cooper Services). According to Sales Director Ian Savage, the Bourg machine is the real deal.
"I've known digital printers who claim they can offer perfect binding but they either send the work out or use budget binders which often deliver a substandard job," he says. "The C.P. Bourg machine is, in my opinion, the best machine of its type on the market. The real judge is the customer, and we have had some high praise from ours over the quality of the perfect bound work we can produce, and of course, we can do it to deadline."
The C.P.Bourg BB3002 is one of the new generation of single clamp perfect binders which provide fully automated and extremely fast touch-screen set ups, making them ideal machines for a digital environment. "It sets up in no time, especially if you're recalling a previous job setting from memory, and the first book is as good as the 100th which means we can even use it to make single proofs," says Mr Savage.
The majority of jobs produced by iQ Laserpress are multipage text based documents such as manuals for a wide range of clients from the industrial and retail sectors, but regularly also course materials for educational institutions. "We produce a wide variety of books which are collated on our Xerox machines, it's then a case of adding a cover and binding them. Versatility is one of the strengths of the BB3002 as it will process jobs with only a few pages, but at the other end of the spectrum we have put books with 65mm spines through it," says Mr Savage.
Mr Savage says that although this is the first machine his company has bought from TCS, there have been no regrets. "They have been responsive and professional, and I have every confidence they will provide good back up for the lifetime of the machine. It's paid for itself already, I think the next step may be to install a three knife trimmer, because at the moment we trim via a standalone guillotine."
iQ Laserpress has experienced rapid growth since its formation in May 2005. An excellent performance in its first year resulted in a turnover figure of £800,000, and the figure for the second year will exceed £2m. The monthly ‘click count' on its digital machines is running at around 4 million for mono and 1 million for colour. It has 20 staff and a 15,000sq ft premises which is shared by two more companies within the iQ group – its two sister companies being iQ Field Marketing and a newly formed third company providing large format print called ‘The BIG iQ'. Group annual turnover is around the £4.5m mark.
Pictured: Perfect Binder Operator Ben Baidoo with iQ's C.P.Bourg BB3002