Booklet Maker Drastically Reduces Turnaround Times

For years, producing commencement programs was a cumbersome task for Appalachian State University Printing and Publications. Printed sheets had to be moved by hand between stand-alone collating, stitching and folding equipment to create about 15,000 programs. “We hired temp employees for that type of work,” says Joyce Mahaffey, director of the Boone, N.C., in-plant.

All that manual labor came to an end when the eight-employee in-plant added a Standard Horizon SPF-20 combination stitcher/folder and FC-20 face trimmer, in-line with a SpeedVAC 100 collator. Producing up to 3,660 booklets (A4) per hour, the system has cut the cost of hiring temps and dramatically reduced turnaround times.

“Before, it would probably have taken us two weeks to do,” Mahaffey says of the commencement program, “and now it’s probably about three days.”

The sheets are loaded in, the system is set up using a touch screen and “everything comes out finished on the other end,” she says. “We’ve not had any error problems with this equipment.”

The SpeedVAC 100 collator uses a rotary-pulse vacuum feed system that can feed virtually any stock.

In deciding which equipment to get, Mahaffey visited some local printers. She saw a lot of Standard and Duplo equipment.

“I would have been happy with either one,” she says. Competition between the two companies brought the price down, and Standard offered the best deal. Thanks to the new booklet making system, the shop can handle large-volume rush jobs that it never could have handled “the old-fashioned, slow way,” Mahaffey says.

The in-plant has also boosted its digital printing capabilities by adding a Canon 7000 with a booklet maker and trimmer. It has helped bring work in-house, such as book covers.

“The quality is just phenomenal,” Mahaffey lauds. “The customers are just in awe of it.”