Apex Print With more than 60 years in the printing business, Wellington’s Apex Print has seen its fair share of technology come and go. And, by keeping almost all its work in house from prepress to finishing, it has seen the emergence and disappearance of equipment from throughout the print process. For more than two decades, the company has been lead by Stuart Tyrer, who has presided over many installations and upgrades.

For the past 15 years, Tyrer says the company has derived plenty of success from its Horizon finishing equipment, sold through AM International. “The Horizon equipment has really added to our business, providing us with much quicker turnaround times, and enabling us to deal with deadlines which are getting tighter by the day.” Apex’s most recent purchase from Horizon was an AFC-544AKTSC folder. The 544 was a replacement for an older Horizon folder, but has provided a big step up in terms of throughput and efficiency, according to Tyrer.

The AFC-544AKTSC, along with all other folders in Horizon’s AFC range offers:

• Up to 17 standard fold patterns that are selected from a LCD touch screen, and which set-up automatically in 14 seconds.

• Step by step guidance from the LCD screen on how to set up non standard folds

• Store and retrieve up to 100 different jobs

• A choice of input units, flat pile, palette or round pile to maximize efficiency depending on the application.

• Optional Gluing unit (for producing 8 or 12 page booklets), Gate fold buckle, slit/trim, perforating available.

• Optional Press stacking & stacking/bundling available for output to maximise operator efficiency

“We looked at other brands of folding machines, especially when we went to PacPrint last May, but it just served to confirm our previous thoughts about Horizon. “This new machine has given us a high quality end-product, better and quicker than we have ever had it before. “We are very happy with it. It has allowed us to be much more productive, and has needed very little in the way of service.

It is more efficient and more reliable and has meant we can get the job back to the customer faster.” Tyrer says the company produces a large number of A4 books for its clients, and says the automated set-up on the Horizon folder has meant it can cut the set-up time down to negligible amounts, compared to what it could do before. “We have been able to reduce the amount of time staff need to spend on the machine, but when they are working on it, they find it is more easily operated and much more efficient. “We are not always happy to say good things about the equipment we buy from other sources, but our Horizon equipment has always been excellent for us. It doesn’t give us any problems, and it’s very reliable.”