Broderick responds quicker to market demands

Broderick Print & Design, a family run business in New Zealand, has installed a Summa F Series cutting table through Aarque Group. The new flatbed finishing system enables the company to take control and save time by bringing its cutting work in-house while increasing its finishing options.

Situated on Auckland’s North Shore, New Zealand, the family-owned and operated company employs 19 staff members, producing the full range of printed products. Between the sales team, the company has more than 100 years’ experience in the printing and packaging industry. Jonny Broderick, managing director, says: “We chose the Summa F Series, F1612 cutting table as an entry-level machine that could help us respond to the market’s demands.”

Large potential within a small footprint

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With 25 years of experience building cutting plotters, Summa delivers highly reliable products, and this has not gone unnoticed with Broderick. Jonny Broderick says: “While researching all the cutting tables out there, an engineer we spoke to explained how and why Summa cutters are superb machines. The European designed and manufactured equipment has a solid reputation for reliability.”  

The first of the F Series product line, the F1612, offers a range of possibilities within a convenient working area of 160 x 120 cm. This was another important aspect for Broderick that contributed to the purchase of a Summa. “The market needed a certain sized machine. With its 160 cm wide working area, the F1612 suits our needs and this within a small footprint. We mix offset, digital, and wide format printing in one factory, so we have to think of our working space when expanding our machine fleet.”

As the company grew, Broderick wanted to have more control if a job changes without experiencing a time delay, even during busy periods. Therefore, bringing its cutting work in-house was a decision that needed to be taken. “To some extent, we had begun to haemorrhage hours, outsourcing cutting jobs or completing them manually. By bringing the cutting jobs in-house, we have control and we have no issues with quality. If a job needs changes, we can complete them without wasting valuable time with the printed material being in transit.”

“It also helps when we chase a job, knowing we have a bit of a buffer there. Bringing the Summa on board will save us money in the long term but, for the moment, it is really about convenience. For instance, last week, we had two jobs we needed the same day. Manually we could not even have finished one job in time. But thanks to the F1612 we were able to design, print, finish and sign both jobs off within 24 hours.”

Summa offers several optional extras for its F Series flatbed cutters. Jonny says: “We didn’t want to restrict what we could cut, so we opted for all the bells and whistles to cut everything from 2 m ply to ACM and corflute. For building signage, you need to be able to cut ACM. The Summa complements the work we do on the other cutters we have. It is like having a guillotine versus having a platen. The time we save helps us in other areas. Have you ever tried to cut corflute by hand?! It's a drag!”

Broderick Print & Design and Aarque Group

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Aarque Group took over the Summa agency last year and Wim Maes, Summa Executive Director & CCO visited Broderick Printing & Design last month. Jonny Broderick explains: “I have known Aarque for a while and it is a good company to deal with. Leo Bult (Chief Executive Officer at Aarque Group) delivers what he says he will. This is the first Summa cutter of this type in the country and that comes with its own challenges. We are learning more about it all the time and we had a good discussion with Wim Maes.” Broderick sees potential for growth in several areas of the business.

“There is so much untapped work with the type of jobs the Summa can perform. We can do our own mockups as well. We can play with new ideas and be creative and it doesn’t cost us too much. It does everything we need it to do. As a business, we are still in a growth phase with the F1612 unit and we are excited to find out what else we can do with this versatile machine.”

Wim Maes (Executive Director & CCO, Summa), Jonny Broderick (Managing Director, Broderick Print & Design), Steve Wilton-Jones (National equipment sales consultant, Aarque Group)

 

Author: Bruce Craig of New Zealand Printer