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Category: News

Factory Move to Boost Turnover

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Rollem began life as a brass foundry in High Green, 84 years ago.

It’s founder, Joseph Mellor, gave the company his name – but in reverse – and started to build up a business making components for other firms.

Although Rollem continued to run a sub-contracting business for a number of years, it rapidly discovered where its future really lay when a local printer approached Joseph Mellor.

The printer needed to perforate some of his output and wondered whether Mellor could make a machine to do it. Joseph said ‘Yes’ and designed and made a machine.

By the late 1930s, perforating machines had become the company’s main line of business – to be joined later by slitting machines and punches.

Life had some downs for Rollem. The company’s first factory burnt to the ground in 1942 – not through enemy action, but because the cinema next door caught fire.

The company moved to Ecclesfield and by the 1950s had been acquired by Sheffield-based marking machinery manufacturers Edward Pryor.

With finances looking none too happy, Pryor’s sent in design engineer Jim Hill to see if he could turn around the company, which had just six employees at the time.

Hill made a start, but the company was still £10 million in the red in the mid-’50s when Pryor cut its losses and Hill demonstrated his confidence in Rollem’s future by acquiring the company.

Rollem’s fortunes did, indeed, improve. By the 1960s the company was well enough advanced and known to start protecting its inventions against imitators by taking out patents.

Then, in 2006 the company was acquired by its management team – managing director Stuart Murphy, who joined Rollem in 1999, and director Colin Pears, who started with Rollem straight from school in 1979.

Their acquisition has sparked a new drive for growth, backed by bankers HSBC.

The foundations for accelerated growth, at what is now a 30-employee firm with a £2 million turnover, were laid earlier this year when the company moved from what had become exceedingly cramped premises at Ecclesfield to Tankersley in a deal involving Aldi.

The German low cost supermarket group was keen to acquire a site in Ecclesfield and, with HSBC’s help, Rollem was able to move factory while retaining ownership of the Ecclesfield site and redeveloping it for Aldi to occupy.

“If we had remained in Ecclesfield, our turnover would have stayed at £2 million,” says Stuart Murphy.

“Moving to this factory will enable us to increase that to £10 million. Since we have moved, we have taken on two apprentices and our aspiration is to have near to 40 people here by the end of next year.”

Rollem moves to a new 22,000 Sq Ft Site

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Acting on behalf of JPB Holdings, the Industrial Agency Team at CBRE’s Sheffield office has completed the sale of Unit 3A Wentworth Industrial Estate in Tankersley, South Yorkshire.

The 21,931 sq ft unit, which benefits from a high profile position on the well occupied Wentworth Industrial Estate equidistant between Sheffield and Barnsley centre’s, was sold for £650,000 to print finishing equipment specialists Rollem.

Roger Haworth, Senior Director of Industrial Agency at CBRE Sheffield, said; “This established industrial location has proven popular with occupiers due to the ease of access to the M1 via Junction 36 and its access to the major conurbations of South Yorkshire. The accommodation was a perfect solution for Rollem as it also offers a high specification warehouse including fully fitted office accommodation. Once again, South Yorkshire demonstrates its attractiveness as an industrial base.”

Stuart Murphy, Managing Director of Rollem said “We have worked with CBRE for a number of years they advised us on the relocation to the new premises and the redevelopment of the premises at Ecclesfield, enabling both to run smoothly and getting the best possible outcome for the future of the business. The new premises at Tankersley have doubled the floor area allowing the company to look to future growth and expansion and have already taken on two apprentices. Having the additional facility of the fibre optic digital region throughout the premises has enabled us, as we export over 85% of our business, to now host international video conferences with customers and potential customers and we have set up a demonstration area in the factory so using webcam technology we can show customers the full capability of our machines without having to travel around the world.”

Drupa 2012

Some photos from our recent visit to Drupa Dusseldorf 2012. We’d like to thank everyone for dropping by & our staff who kept smiling through extremely long days. All of you helped to make this an incredibly successful exhibition.

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50 Years at Rollem for Roger

Roger Shaw Retires after 50 Years at Rollem

Today we’d like to say a big thank you and give our best wishes to Roger Shaw who after 50 years of service is retiring from Rollem. His career with Rollem began at 15 on leaving school and has continued unbroken until today. In fact he stayed on for an extra few weeks to make sure his last projects were completed.

Roger who is famous on our shop floor for building the feeders that integrate with our SlipStream playing card machines has built all of them for the past 12 years, a project that was not just a work of art but a work of heart. His last feeder is presently on a boat destined for Singapore.

Good Luck Roger!

A Win for Rollem in the Made in Sheffield Exporters Award

Made In Sheffield Awards 2012 – Rollem win the Exporters Award

The judges said this “driven” business was a good example of how a small business can develop by exporting and not relying on domestic trade. They said a proactive and personal approach from management made it a standard bearer for small businesses.

Not only is this a win for Rollem but it recognises the support to the economy from the SMEs in the manufacturing sector.

Thanks to all our staff and employees who make the difference and a special thanks to our customers throughout the world who make it all possible.

View a pic of our award

Drupa 2012

MEET US IN DÜSSELDORF,
Germany, 3-16 May 2012. Hall 10
Stand 10E63

Forget the Olympics, our NEW product launch at Drupa is set to be the big event of 2012

Click here to book a personal consultation at Drupa

COME BACK SOON TO FIND OUT MORE…

Congratulations we have a Winner

We are proud to announce that our latest apprentice, Cameron, won though against considerable competition in the Sheffield area to win this year’s Bronze Achievement Award.

Well done Cameron!

Rollem Launches the Photoslit Photobook Finishing System

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The latest innovation from Sheffield manufacturer Rollem is PhotoSlit, which has been developed in direct response to market demands for a photobook finishing system that combines high cut quality and productivity with minimum operator skills and maintenance along with the ability to change settings easily between jobs.

Rollem has already received orders for the new photobook system and the first machine to be built was shipped to a customer in Spain during February. Initially, PhotoSlit is being aimed at fast turnaround printers, with digital web-to-print workflows for jobs up to SRA3. However, Rollem says it could manufacture PhotoSlit in other sizes if required, including up to B1.

“Our comprehensive in-house design and engineering facilities allow us to create finishing equipment that meets a very specific need,” says managing director Stuart Murphy. “PhotoSlit is a good example of how we can respond quickly to create a bespoke finishing solution.

“Very often we design and build equipment in situations where other manufacturers will not even consider trying to find an answer. Such systems can give quite a competitive edge to a company in the marketplace and, unfortunately, this generally means we are not allowed to publicise the installation – a bit frustrating when you’ve just achieved a major breakthrough in post-press technology!”

The two-dimensional bleed cutting facility incorporated with PhotoSlit is said to provide the most accurate and narrow bleed cutting in the world. With a gutter size as small as 1.6 mm, PhotoSlit can significantly reduce waste and produce more pages per printed sheet than other photobook systems on the market. The long-life slitting blades should last between three and six months in a normal, busy production environment.

PhotoSlit can handle up to 8,000 SRA3 sheets an hour. The page size range is from A6 to A3 and Rollem says it could make a system capable of handling sheets down to 75 x 30 mm. Each printed sheet is carefully handled individually, with identical processing every time leading to extremely precise registration.

If there is a problem with print image shift within the job, Rollem’s AutoLay system enables the operator to compensate for this. Other features incorporated within the new Rollem equipment include batch counting and remote control. PhotoSlit is independently verified to comply with CE and the latest European machinery directives.

“The standard SRA3 PhotoSlit product costs £55,000 and this includes all that is needed for most photobook pages in an in-line environment,” says Stuart Murphy. “In addition to near-line and in-line PhotoSlit systems, we are able to produce off-line versions, which can be used with our deep pile feeder or shallow pile TurboFeeder, both reliable and robust systems. As with so much of what we create at our Sheffield factory, the end product is generally a solution to a customer’s particular post press need.”

Rollem appoints French Distribution

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UK manufacturer Rollem has appointed Lyon-based Ollagnier SA as its distributor in France. Rollem has been designing and building bespoke finishing systems for 80 years and its products range from feeding, numbering, perforating, trimming and scoring systems to sophisticated lines that may require extremely accurate slitting, gluing, folding and wrapping.

Rollem’s ability to process stock as diverse as lightweight paper to plastic is one of the reasons the company has been successful in developing finishing lines when other manufacturers have refused to even consider looking for a solution.

Most of Rollem’s systems are based around precisely engineered rotary technology, which enables much higher throughput levels and accuracy than can be achieved with equipment based on platen or fixed knife principles.

Ollagnier is the distributor in France for several leading manufacturers, including Autobond, Busch, Brandtjen & Kluge, Hohner, and Grassi, while it sells Heidelberg, Polar, and Stahl equipment to public companies in Algeria.

“We are constantly looking out for partnerships where we can represent a leading manufacturer producing equipment that complements our existing range and this new agreement with Rollem is perfect,” says Ollagnier sales manager Olivier Thion.

“Rollem’s equipment is used across a huge variety of industry sectors, from digital and commercial print to highly specialised finishing as well as niche areas such as labels, greeting and playing cards. The use of rotary technology reduces wastage and often allows the printer to incorporate more items per sheet, which obviously increases throughput and profitability.”

Rollem Scores hit at Carson Print

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The scoring wheels launched at Ipex by Sheffield manufacturer Rollem have been given the thumbs up by Wirral printer Carson Print Services, which was the first UK company to test the new product when it installed the wheels on a trial basis prior to the exhibition.

“We operate both litho and digital presses here at Neston and were increasingly printing heavier stock on our digital equipment,” says director Eddie McGill. “However, we often encountered problems with cracking when card printed digitally was then folded.

“Around the time that we were looking for a solution we were also considering replacing our Rollem numbering and perforating machine, which had been in regular use for many years. We contacted Rollem and the company sent out an engineer. To be honest, the machine simply needed a good service and we were impressed by the engineer’s honesty, as we were prepared to buy a new model.

“We explained about the cracking problem and he suggested we tested Rollem’s new scoring wheels. We subsequently fitted these to the numbering and perforating machine, which was once more performing as new. Rollem’s scoring wheels are certainly very straightforward to set up and have completely overcome the issues we had, so that we can now print and fold a wide variety of stocks with first class results,” says Mr McGill.

Rollem says there was a great deal of interest in the newly designed wheels at Ipex and that it does not know of a scoring machine on the market that can handle heavier stock. The wheels can be fitted easily to any Rollem system, from a numbering unit to a JetStream machine, and have the ability to score stock up to 900 gsm as well as plastic. The high quality wheels provide accurate, crack-free, scoring across a range of materials.

Carson Print Services, which was formed in 1981, provides a comprehensive selection of print and finishing services to local business in the Neston area and throughout the UK. These include a full range of business and personal stationery.