Xclusive Printing Solutions (XPS), co-owned by brothers Jason and John Meoushy, recently moved into a new purpose-built facility in Ingleburn, Sydney, and invested in new equipment from Horizon, with the aim of making a big push towards trade printing services.
Acquired from Horizon supplier Currie Group, the new equipment – which include the Horizon iCE Stitchliner Mark IV, the BQ-500 Binder, and the HT-300 Trimmer – have significantly increased XPS’s capacity.
“The company is heading in a different direction now, going from a general printer to pushing more into trade printing,” Jason Meoushy, managing director at XPS, told Print21.
“In the last 18 months, we’ve put a fair bit into getting new equipment to help facilitate our growth ambitions. We wanted to make sure we had everything in place so that we’d be able to hit the ground running with no issues once we shift more towards trade.
“We finished our purpose-built facility and moved in over the Christmas period, and now everything has started to come into play – everything is finalised, all the equipment is in, and we’ve begun speaking to customers and getting a few new clients to come on board with us.”
Meoushy emphasised the importance of client interaction, and a quick and more personalised service compared to the larger trade printers, which he said has directly led to the company receiving an increase in trade printing clients.
“Having that relationship with the client is very important from my perspective. The people that we've persuaded to come on board with us like having that direct interaction with an actual person, which sometimes might be missing from some of the bigger guys in this space,” Meoushy said.
“It's that service factor that plays a big part to winning the work. It's not all about the price. It's a lot of service orientated factors that the clients are after, which the industry has lost over the years because of the internet and how things work nowadays.”
Since the new equipment has been installed, XPS’s workload capacity has significantly increased, allowing the company to take on much bigger jobs, and several that Meoushy says he could never have imagined previously with the legacy equipment.
John Richmond, NSW account manager for Currie Group, tells Print21: “It’s amazing to see the growth of XPS through the years; Jason, John and the team has such positive energy. From the initial meeting, both Jason and John had a clear view on which way they wanted to go with investing in the latest Horizon technology to be capable of offering trade services to the market. It really shows their vision on efficiency enabling growth.”
According to Meoushy, the company now has the capacity to produce about 5000-8000 books a day, and with the company’s finishing capacity, it is now able to produce perfectly bound and printed books within 24 hours.
“We have always worked with Horizon equipment, and we’ve had a great relationship with them, and Currie Group, ever since our first kit we acquired from them,” said Meoushy.
“We’re comfortable working the machines and they’re always very reliable, and the footprint is considerably smaller than a lot of other machines, and those factors go a long way when you want to pivot towards trade printing.
“The operational side was a big factor for us too, being a smaller outfit with about 12 full-timers and a few casuals. The equipment can be operated by one or two people, the automation aspect is phenomenal, they are very quick and accurate, and they are very robust machinery. It was a no-brainer to go with the Horizon.”
“Before the installation of the BQ-500 perfect binder and HT-300 Three Edge Trimmer, we always had pallets of books being lined up on the factory floor waiting to be cut on the guillotine, but now we see a much more streamlined operation with books being bound much faster and the trimmed automatically,” Meoushy noted.
Currie Group's Richmond added “Within one week of the Stitchliner Mark IV being installed, we saw how their team members have embraced the new technology with passion and energy, running it at capacity, with a very smooth transition from their existing Horizon booklet maker. This is also a testament to the consistent and easy to use interface in all Horizon equipment. We look forward to the ongoing partnership with Xclusive Printing Solutions.”