The Best Kept Secret in Folding | By Doug Barrett, June 2014
If I say, name a console folder manufacturer, you probably wouldn’t come up with the name Horizon. Horizon is the most relevant manufacturer of finishing equipment in the world today. Automated folders are a huge part of the product line made by Horizon. I say they are the most relevant manufacturer because all of the machines they design and manufacture are the most automated machines in the world. Horizon designs their machines to be profitable running jobs that are only a few sheets and to be able to handle long run work as well.
The key difference with Horizon, is that they never take an older model and try to modify it to make it more up to date, or do something it was not initially intended to do when first engineered. Horizon builds a new model with exacting requirements for what it will be designed to do. The traditional folder manufacturers take older manual models and add automation to them. Very often compromises have to be made in order to make new add-ons work with older designs. Our competitors will have a manual version of the machine and then have different automation packages available as options or upgrades. In every case, once you get their fully automated solution, it will be at a higher price and will not have the total automation that the Horizon folder has. The philosophy of Horizon is that the printers of today need total automation and as a manufacturer, if they build only automated machines, then they can build machines for a lower price point.
Horizon has been putting touch screen interfaces on all machines they build since 1995. All set up, running and operating parameters are entered through that screen. Two-hundred jobs can be stored into memory, all tweaks are saved so when it is pulled back up it comes exactly back to where it was within seconds. The interface that Horizon has designed is elegant and powerful. Jobs that might take hours to dial in on a manual folder can be dialed – in just a few minutes. Once they are saved in memory you can call them back up in about 90 seconds. They can be modified and saved or modified for this job only.
When I say fully automated, I mean fully!
Not only do the fold plates set but also the feeder head, side lay guide, and guides in the right angle and those fold plates as well. The roller gaps are also automatically set. All you do is put 1 sheet of the stock you are running in the caliper and all of the rollers are set to the proper gap. There is no longer a need to have a skilled operator figure out how many sheets need to go in all of the gapsets. The software in the Horizon folder sets all of them based on the thickness of the one sheet and the fold imposition chosen. They can be adjusted through the interface if necessary as issues occur with certain sheets. The machine will remember every adjustment you make to a job when saved including tweaks to roller gaps.
The final benchmark that Horizon sets is quality, durability and reliability. Horizon is a complete manufacturer. They make their own parts, including circuit boards, in house. This gives them a great deal of control, especially when it comes to quality. Horizon folders have a solid frame. You can jack-up 1 corner of a Horizon folder with a pallet jack and run it with perfect results. All competitive folders have to be perfectly level to perform and last because they have a bolted frame. Having a solid frame makes the machine more robust and makes it easier to maintain roller adjustments.
Mid-State Litho, Inc.
5459 Fenton Rd.
Flint, MI 48507
midstatelitho.com