Productivity flourishing at Bourne Brothers with Colter & Peterson’s PRISM paper cutter

Scott Ruple knew productivity would increase at Bourne Brothers once installation of a new 36-inch PRISM® paper cutter with Microcut® from Colter & Peterson was completed. What he didn’t quite expect was the level of improvement would continue after having the machine for a year. Not that he’s complaining, especially with business doing well at the Hattiesburg, Mississippi large format conventional and digital print shop.

“Our busiest time of the year is usually from May through September, so we were just starting to ramp up when the PRISM arrived last May,” recalled Ruple, the shop’s production manager and one of 16 employees. “Since then, things really have not slowed down. We began 2018 very busy and our business has been consistent across the board. We run the cutter about 50 hours a week.”

Ruple says the keys to success for Bourne Brothers is its flexibility. They print all types of work and sizes for a vast of range of customers. Equal amounts of the work is divided and printed on Xerox 2100 and Sharp digital presses, plus two Ryobi 3302 presses and 4-color PM 74.

“We do business with a great group of customers, and ninety percent of them are local. The economy here is doing well, and we print a good amount of material for two colleges and two universities,” said Ruple, a 12-year veteran at Bourne Brothers. “We bought the PRISM from Colter & Peterson to keep up with our business. We improved productivity immediately by 20 percent. In the last year, we have become familiar with and learned more about the machine. I’m pretty sure we’ve raised our productivity to at least 30 percent, compared to a year ago.”

Ruple says runs of 50,000 are not uncommon, but the digital side is where having the speed of the PRISM is paying off.

“We do everything from banners to displays for retailers and schools, and even smaller run work for businesses and mom and pop stores. The PRISM excels when we have a job that is 1,000 pieces or less. Those jobs are finished in no time.”

The reason why is the automated Microcut electronics system, which includes a 15-inch programmable touchscreen. Microcut quickens the process by memorizing cutting sequences for instant recall. Ruple’s crew assigns numbers to each job so Microcut can recall cut specifications when they repeat the job. A 6-inch clamp opening provides room for more material to be trimmed.

“The speed is very good and it is really easy to set-up for jobs. We print a lot of business cards so with the 6-inch clamp opening, we can cut 50 or 60 sheets at a time. That saves a good amount of time and why our productivity continues to improve,” informed Ruple.

“It is a very operator friendly machine. A year ago, we were just getting used to how fast and easy it was to hit our marks the first time. The more we learned, the faster we got the work done. For example, once we got used to moving the gate back and forth, it became easier before setting the clamp. And with the amount of sheets we cut, we replace the blade on a regular basis. We’re still getting used to changing it, but given how busy we have been, that’s okay. The cutter keeps us running and I’m happy that we are producing at this level.”