Installations News
Digital Direct Printing improves turnaround times with new Polar cutters from Heidelberg

The largest commercial printer on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Digital Direct Printing recently installed two Polar N 78 Plus cutters from Heidelberg. With one cutter dedicated to prepping paper for the press runs and one for finishing, the company has been able to reduce bottlenecks on the production floor, resulting in faster turnaround times for its customers.

Digital Direct, a mid-sized printer, services many high-security, quick turn customers and runs two offset presses and three digital presses. These presses require a high volume of cut sheets – both on the front and back end of printing. Rather than purchase one new cutter, Digital Direct decided to purchase two new Polar N 78 Plus cutters, which are placed at the feeder and delivery of its Speedmaster SM 74. With two cutters, Owner Geoff Davis has been able to cross train his press operators to cut their own parent sheets for printing, thanks to the N 78’s operator-friendly interface, which makes the cutter both easy to operate and to set up repeat jobs.

Duplicate cutters have also freed up his cutter operator to focus on just finishing work – getting completed jobs to customers faster.

According to Davis, “The back-up at the cutter used to cause tension on the floor. Now we’ve eliminated bottlenecks in our workflow and made the paper flow to and from the press much more ergonomic for our operators. We found that as a result of COVID, many customers have shorter print runs and expect jobs to be turned around faster.”

Since installing the new cutters, Digital Direct has seen an improvement in its overall productivity and is now better equipped to adjust to its customers’ growing demands. Davis cites, “the ability to get jobs prepared and then cut and finished more quickly, efficiently, accurately, and repeatedly has been the biggest benefit to us.”