Clockwork, in the bustling heart of West Perth, is a modern digital printing house which up until recently only had one gap in its high-tech setup: staff had to fold booklets by hand, or else outsource them to other companies. Enter Currie Group, whose Horizon CRF-362 creaser/folder has made Clockwork’s operations tick over more smoothly than ever.
Before Clockwork, I’d only ever encountered one other printer whose machines had their own names, and that was in Switzerland. As I walk through Clockwork’s offices in West Perth, however, owner Bruce Hawley takes me past machines with names like Bertha, Arnie, and Jack the Knife – the last of which is, of course, a guillotine.
Hawley introduces me to the newest member of the company’s fleet: Rosie, the Horizon CRF-362 creaser/folder, named after Rosie the Riveter. “My wife and I had originally named it Bender, because of what it does, but Kelly, one of the operators, suggested Rosie the Riveter instead – ‘going on a bender’ means something completely different nowadays,” he laughs.
Rosie has given Clockwork a major boost to its booklet-making capabilities, says Jenny Elliott, operations supervisor. “We used to do the folding by hand, so it was very time-consuming, or outsource it to other companies. The new machine means we can do a lot more work, with a quicker turnaround time,” she says.
Sally Burges, one of Rosie’s operators, says the new machine has been simple and easy to use, and saved her and her fellow staff a lot of work. “I just did a 250-fold job,” she says, pointing to a stack of finished rowing club pamphlets. “That would have taken us half a day to do it by hand – with Rosie, I got it done in 15 minutes.”
Rosie is Clockwork’s first purchase from Currie Group, and Adrian Dixon, Currie Group’s WA state manager, hopes it’ll be the first of many. “The Horizon CRF-362 is a really good fit for them, they’ve hit the ground running. The operators have taken to it quite keenly, and it’s been a good experience for both of us. It’s the beginning of what we hope’s going to be a long relationship,” Dixon says.