Company background
Sir Max Bemrose, former chairman of the Bemrose Corporation and active in it for 50 years, was instrumental in identifying the strategic principles mentioned above. Now, as BemroseBooth, the company has continued to seek new opportunities through technological innovation. From the printing of the first railway timetables in the mid 1800’s, the company has evolved to become the leading specialist printer of all types of vouchers and secure numbered documents for most of the UK’s main high street retailers.

 

The company has 850 employees within the group, 500 of whom are based in Derby. The group turnover in 2002 was £62M, which places BemroseBooth among the top 30 UK printing companies.

 

Reasons for introducing digital security printing
Over the past few years, certain trends in work patterns had become apparent: run lengths were declining, there were shorter runs of more documents and the deadline for delivery was becoming tighter. At the same time information was becoming more complex and yet relevant for a shorter time. Within BemroseBooth Information Products division, the core products are a mix of railway timetables, catalogues and directories for industry, product lists for the automotive industry and instruction manuals for software developers. By definition, all these printed publications require updating and revising with increasing frequency—a task ideally suited to digital technology.

 

The choice for Océ
BemroseBooth invested initially in 2 Océ Pagestream 440 printers principally to handle variable data printing on vouchers and for printing other secure numbered documents. For a company like BemroseBooth, digital printing had to prove itself as a key element in their service offering, before any further investment was made.

The successful completion of major projects, such as the printing of the soccer World Cup 2002 tickets for 32 national football associations, including China, in under 6 weeks, helped to establish the credibility of digital printing. Demand grew and increased familiarity with the capabilities of the Océ system identified a whole range of possible new applications, which could not have been realised before.

 

New Océ technology: convergence of applications
BemroseBooth was determined that the system chosen would provide the them with maximum BemroseBooth flexibility to handle different applications and enable switching from one to another as simply as possible.

Operational management and Rodger Heathcote, Manager of Information Products, who had responsibility for the existing Océ PS440’s in his area, recommended to the BemroseBooth Board the acquisition of Océ’s top of the range VarioStream 7650 Twin continuous printers. The recommended system was configured to provide maximum applications flexibility, with dual 300 and 600 dpi resolution and also MICR capability for cheque printing.

The paper handling set-up is a highly flexible configuration with a Hunkeler Unwind and CS4W Cutter/stacker on each line, enabling the system to work as 2 simplex printers, or alternatively, as a fully integrated duplex system, depending on the application. 600 dpi publishing jobs can be output either as cut-sheet stacks or folded signatures for books, while all the usual transactional work can be produced roll to roll or roll to cut sheet, typically at 300 dpi. “We now have the means to undertake a whole range of applications we couldn’t handle before”

 

New applications development
“We now have the means to undertake a whole range of applications we couldn’t handle before,” says Rodger Heathcote. “We currently print EU patents in only 3 languages, but we can now do that easily in 29. In the automotive after-market, we print a lot of parts catalogues only once a year. Our new ability to publish monthly updates will also help our clients increase their business.” Another new capability is the selective printing on demand for the different train operating companies, which currently rely on Network Rail operating information, issued globally to all 25 companies, when frequently the information is required for only one company.

 

“We know how much more we can undertake now, thanks to the new Océ system,” adds Rodger, “In fact, our immediate priority is accelerating solid growth and focusing on new business opportunities through digital technology.”