J Thomson boosts folding capacity with MBO investment

Commercial litho and digital printer J Thomson Colour Printers has made "a significant six-figure investment" in two new MBO folding machines, a K8-RS and a T800, to "almost double" its folding capacity.

The machines, which will be installed at the Glasgow-based company's premises in December, will replace two of its three existing MBO folders, which will be part exchanged.

The firm also looked at Heidelberg’s Stahlfolder range but decided that the MBO machines were the best fit to cut the bottleneck in its finishing department.

Launched earlier this year and billed as "the world’s fastest folding machine" by MBO, the K8-RS is capable of 18,000sph and production speeds of up to 275m/min, matching those of sheetfed offset presses.

“This investment will have a significant impact. We do a lot of section work and we have primarily bought the K8-RS because it’s such a fast section folding machine,” said managing director Kevin Creechan.

“We were really looking for something that mirrored the performance of our presses and we’ll now be able to fold at the same pace as work comes off the press.”

J Thomson has also been responsible for printing the official poster for the Ryder Cup, which is taking place this week at Gleneagles.

The commemorative poster, which was designed by competition winner Katie Carmichael, has a print run of 1,600 and was printed on the firm's six-colour Heidelberg XL 105 press.

The poster is available to buy at Gleneagles until Sunday (28 September) and through the online Official European 2014 Ryder Cup Shop, with all proceeds raised from sales going to charity.

J Thomson Colour Printers has 110 staff and a turnover of around £13m. Its clients are predominantly blue-chip companies and its sectors include advertising, construction, design, education, fine arts and retail.