TPF GROUP's heritage is very much as a print manufacturer, although we now offer a very diverse range of print-related services. We opened our first factory in 1991, and since then have experienced continuous, year-on-year growth. We now have five separate manufacturing businesses – The Print Factory, TPF DIRECT, TPF DIGITAL, McCorquodale and Wace – operating out of two substantial sites in Northampton, one in Brentford, West London and one in Swindon.

Our philosophy has always been to invest heavily in the most up-to-date and sophisticated technology, and we typically replace all machinery with brand new plant within a maximum of three years. This continual reinvestment programme is surprisingly rare within our industry, but the benefits in terms of quality control and reliability have enabled us consistently to deliver industry-leading service standards to our clients, which has been rewarded with more work and long-term loyalty.

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Pre-press/Reprograhics
Digital printing
Sheet-fed printing
Web offset printing (incl. in-line finishing)
Direct Mail
Finishing

Pre-press / Reprographics

We are continually upgrading and keeping ahead of the game. Computer To Plate (CTP) is the norm and has been for over five years. We have two Fuji Luxel plate setters that give us excellent quality plates in readiness to produce quality print.

All of our manufacturing sites provide digital proofing, fingerprinted to our own press profiles, ISDN and FTP sites, as well as remote proofing where required. Reprographics

Here’s what we have over the three sites:
4 x G5 and 8 x G4 Apple Mac workstations, connected to the Fuji Rampage Valiano workflow system by gigabit networking to the following output devices:

2 x fully automatic Fuji Luxel V9600 CTP (twin beam laser) violet light plate setters, capable of 64 B1 plates per hour at 2540 dpi
Heidelberg Topsetter B1 plate setter
Dupont Digital Cromalin Ax4-GE with automatic pantone calibration
5 x Epson Stylus Pro 10600 with XXL 44” wide proofers, all fingerprinted to our presses
2 x Hewlett Packard 1050 Designjet 42” wide 6 colour plotters with Dupont colour station and automatic pantone calibration
Heidelberg Topaz A3 scanner
Fuji Lanovia Sprint C550 scanner A3+ flatbed with copydot facility
Hewlett Packard 750c Imposition proofer
PDF remote proofing

Digital Printing

TPF DIGITAL focuses entirely on digital print and ticketing. A £1.5m expansion programmes is planned over the next 12 months. This will include the highest specification digital presses, IT resources and finishing equipment offering clients the highest level of personalisation.

At the heart of our operation is a new Xerox iGen3 - the industry-leading digital press geared to short runs and fast turnaround. Its modular architecture makes it highly versatile, capable of producing high-quality print with automatic make-ready and collation, the ability to mix stocks within a run and built-in colour intelligence. Every page produced can be customised and personalised with colour and mono combined. A second iGen3 is expected to be purchased soon.

iGen3 features

Up to 6,600 (iGen3 110) full process colour A4, 4/0 impressions per hour.
600 x 600 dpi, 8-bit depth resolution and Xerox patented dry inks for excellent fine line rendering and benchmark colour gamut.
Up to 6 input feeder modules with two trays each - all trays capable of holding 2,500 sheets of 120gsm for a total capacity of 30,000 sheets (up to 50,000 additional sheets with roll feeder).
High performance RIPs: Creo Spire Colour Server.
Wide array of stocks: coated, uncoated, textured, smooth and speciality.

Key applications:

Short-run, on demand printing of brochures, books, flyers, postcards, newsletters, catalogues, manuals, sell sheets etc.
Direct mail marketing campaigns.
Personalised 1 to 1 communications.
Web fulfilment materials.
Statements and financial reports with unique text, images and graphics.

Technical specification:

Minimum sheet size: 178mm x 178mm.
Maximum sheet size: 364mm x 521mm.
Maximum image area: 361mm x 519mm.
Digital stocks to 350gsm.

Finishing

1 x Ideal 7228-06LT Guillotine
1 x Duplo DC645 Production Colour Finisher (Slit/Cut/Crease)
1 x GBC Delta+ Laminator
1 x Morgana Digital Creaser Folder
1 x Duplo DSF-5000 Booklet Maker System
1 x Watkiss Booklet Maker System
1 x Duplo DF-1000 Folder
1 x Duplo Stago UH25 Twin Head Stapler
1 x Duplo PD-223 Twin-Head Paper Drill
1 x GBC Magnapunch

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Sheet-fed Printing

Lithographic printing using sheets rather than reels of paper. The sheets run through the presses twice to create a fully backed up sheet. We’ve been manufacturing quality, sheet-fed print since 1991.

1 x Heidelberg GTO 52 – 2 Colour Press
This is a two colour press (or a 1 back, 1 perfector) with a maximum sheet size of 360mm x 520mm. It’s great for stationery and forms, with page numbering and perforating facilities.

1 x Heidelberg 74 Speedmaster – 5 Colour Press
This machine can print up to five colours or four colours plus a sealer varnish. It also has its own coater unit, with a maximum sheet size 520mm x 740mm giving a maximum print area of 500mm x 730mm.

Tech spec:

Hot and cold air knives
Infra-red drying

3 x Heidelberg CD 102 - 6 Colour Presses
These machines all print up to a B1 sheet (maximum print area 700mm x 1010mm). As well as being able to print up to six colours plus a coating, they all have extended drying units, which means the sheets come off the press dry enough to be backed up straight away or sent into finishing. Other features include semi-automatic plate changing, automatic blanket and impression washer. These machines can produce up to 15,000 sheets per hour.

Tech spec:

Dedicated coating unit extended
Infra-red dryers
Hot and cold air knives
Semi automatic plate change
Chilled rollers
CPC 2000
Touch screen technology
Automatic blanket and impression cylinder washer

Perfecting Presses
We also have three long perfecting presses that sit between the sheet-fed and web offset machines. All can take sheets up to B1 and two of them can take reels of paper from 60gsm up to 190gsm.

By using the perfecting units on the press we can print either 5 or 6 colours in one pass on both sides of the sheet. This means they are very competitive on longer runs, say from 100,000 up to 1.5 million.

1 x Heidelberg 102 10 Colour Press (5/5 perfector)

1 x Heidelberg 102 10 Colour Press (5/5 perfector) with CutStar

1 x Heidelberg 102 12 Colour Press (6/6 perfector) with CutStar

All have a sheet size up to 1020mm x 720mm sheet size.

Colour Management

From huge reels of paper, up to six colours can be printed, or five plus a varnish, on both sides of the paper simultaneously. The Heidelberg M600 is the ideal machine for large volumes and folded sections up to 16 printed pages at a time.

Heidelberg M600 16 page web press
This awesome machine has a maximum sheeting speed of 50,000 cut offs per hour, and an in-line speed of up to 36,000 cut offs per hour dependant on product. Along with its built-in colour control system, which gives us the ability to evaluate colours in much the same way as our sheet-fed presses, we have one of the most state-of-the-art web offset presses in the market place.

Other features include:

Auto plate-up for reduced make ready times
Auto register system for more consistent register through print runs
Plate room to press colour set up for reduced waste
Magnetic perfing vertical or across full width of sheets

Tech spec:

Six unit
50,000 cut offs (sheets) per hour
Cut off 630mm
Maximum width 965mm

Web Offset Printing

In-line finishing
Our WPM in-line finishing system allows us to take a reel of paper and create a spine- glued booklet with re-moist and perfing or a die-cut aperture.

We have a basic format book that helps our clients understand some of the formats we can produce in-line.

Tech spec:

Angle bars, 1 in 4 out, with out-feed unit
Impact gluer/envelope gluer
5 plow towers
Die-cutter – variable perf or die shapes
Re-moist, hot melt and spine gluer
Shear slitting station
Rotary cutter

We also have a full gilda computerised planning of products to press which means we can provide accurate machine dummies.

Edelmann Colour Print V.52
A recent addition to our plant list, this variable size web offset press takes TPF into the new area of continuous stationery and business forms.

This impressive machine has the ability to produce continuous stationery or business forms with drops of 16" to 24" printing up to six colours one side or a combination of colours on both sides from 1 back 1 up to 5 back 1. Running at speeds of approximately 100,000 A4s an hour, it can also die cut and perf inline.

Tech Spec:

Max print width - 520mm
Max web width - 510mm
Paper weight from 30gsm up to 180gsm
Roll to roll
Roll to sheet
UV Inks
Perf inline
Die cutting

Direct Mail

TPF DIRECT was set up in 2004 to fulfil the group’s growing direct mail requirements. We are fully operational in all aspects of transactional mailing, as well as traditional DM packs and one-piece mailers.

Our current equipment has capacity to produce up to four million DM packs (dependent on content) and over 500,000 transactional mailing packs per week.

We also offer a full in-house, data-processing team, undertaking:

Mailsort
Downstream access sort
Data cleansing
Document composition
Bespoke data-processing solutions

Personalisation

3 x OCE 7650 continuous laser printer (reel to reel) simplex/duplex
3 x OCE 5160 cut sheet laser printers with 8 tray mapping - simplex / duplex
2 x Xerox DP96 cut sheet - simplex / duplex
3 x Astrojet 2000 ink jet printers
1 x Hewlett Packard 9000
7 x Hewlett Packard 8000

Sheet and Fold

1 x Ehret Sheeter Folder 520mm web width, flow fold unit, MBO 68/6 Folder and Palamides stacker, capable of sheeting and folding at 200m per minute
1 x Bowe T55 6 + 4 sheeter folder line, reel infold, guillotine and trim, cross fold capability, speed in excess of 12000 feet / hour.
1 x Stahl T50 4 + 4 pile feed folder

Enclosing

2 x Pitney Bowes APS full intelligent enclosing system with both sheet and continuous input stations, completely selective with barcode reading, feeding into a GMC binding unit. Cycle speed 18000 /packs / hour DL or C5 only
3 x Buhrs BB300 enclosing machines with both 6 hoppers on 8 bases, Driver Southall check weighers in-line. Perhaps the most efficient work horse of the DM industry the Buhrs has rotary feeders, C6 to C4 size variability and cycles A5 up to 8000 per hour. Lake 2 way camera matching / mail sort system
2 x Kalmar KC45 unimailers. These machines have the capacity to enclose up to 12,000 envelopes per hour.
1 x Accufast Excel labeller

Finishing

With TPF GROUP’s extensive range of finishing equipment, including a recent investment of over £1 million, we can handle virtually all our clients finishing requirements.

2 x Polar Guillotine 137 with complete automatic flowline
3 x Polar Guillotines 115 EMC Programmatic with monitors, maximum sheet size 1150mm, complete with flowline
Heidelberg ST270 saddle stitcher (4 station and cover feeder)
Heidelberg ST300 saddle stitcher (6 station and cover feeder)
Heidelberg Cylinder (520 x 720mm) die cutting at 2,000 an hour
SABRE SPL 1050 super auto platen die cutting at up to 9,000 an hour
Stahl Flexomailer can crease, fold, perf and glue inline – ideal for self mailers.
4 x KH 82 folders
4 x TDT 78 folders
2 x TDT 66 folding
TD 50 folding
T1 52 folding
5 x Arran semi-automatic ram bundlers
12 station collator
Shrink wrapping
Vacuumatic Vicount 2 B1 FS tabbing machine

The Print Factory

South Portway Close
Round Spinney
Northampton NN3 8RH
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Print Sales contact:

Alistair Ezzy,
Group Sales Director

Tel: +44 (0)7970 232 491