Coil For The Cost-conscious

Put simply, plastic coil binding saves money. And better yet, customers love the way it looks.

by Mike Llewellyn

IT MAY NOT be branded "the wave of the future." It may not have industry commentators calling it a revolution. But plastic coil binding has developed a solidly loyal following over the past few years among in-plant managers.

Dave Opp is one of them. Opp is manager of corporate printing and literature distribution for Storagetek, a software firm specializing in data storage and disaster recovery systems. Opp feels the bindery can play its own role in disaster recovery.

"Binding is critical," says Opp, speaking from his Louisville, Colo. office. "The perfect printing job can be ruined by poor finishing. By the same token, mediocre printing can really be brought around by quality binding."

Without a doubt, Opp says, customer preference for plastic coil makes the shop's GBC inserter the most popular piece of finishing equipment in the bindery. The in-plant also offers three-ring, comb and tape binding.

Vendors have long claimed plastic coil binding is ideal for its durability and because it allows pages to lie flat. In-plants have picked this up and run with it. With careful pricing and the right equipment, managers can exploit these selling points and grow their own market for this inexpensive, quality finishing method.

Over the past year alone, plastic coil has become a hit with customers, says Steve Lindsay, print shop manager for the bindery and stockroom at the Kansas Division of Printing. Running Performance Design's Rhin-O-Tuff HD7000 and HD7700, which it bought from Southwest Plastic Binding, the 67-employee Topeka shop has been steadily assembling a stockpile of samples to show customers.

"The more people that get plastic coil done, the more samples we have to show," he says. And the more samples the shop has, adds Lindsay, the more customers ask for coil.

Selling To Save Money

Storagetek's Opp says the shop has been offering plastic coil binding to its customers for nearly two years.

"We used wire before, and we did a significant amount of binders," he says. "But with this, we were able to save a lot of money."

He adds that with the shop's particular equipment, the plastic coil binding process is faster than the spiral wire process it had been using.

"The customer reaction to the switch ranged from good to no reaction at all," he says. "But the important thing is there were no negative reactions."

Opp says that while the shop charges the same price for each binding method, plastic coil comes at a substantially lower cost. So to push open the profit margin, he says the shop favors the GBC equipment.

"We push the coil quite a bit," he says. "Those [three-ring] binders are a last resort because the coil brings such a greater profit margin."

To make sure the shop gets its money's worth out of the bindery, Opp says he has had to put on his salesman's hat to convince customers to go with coil.

"I try to act as an expert," says Opp, not mentioning that, in fact, he is one. "I go with the 'I'd like to recommend some appropriate finishing' standpoint. If I am able to lead them in the conversation, typically they'll go with the plastic coil binding. There are lots of ways to sell it."

Opp isn't the only one peddling plastic. Managers around the country have seen success with their trusty inserters.

At Birmingham, Ala.-based Vulcan Materials, Printing Services Manager Cory Nichols says his six-employee shop has spent the past five years pushing Gateway Bookbinding Systems' PlastiKoil PBS 330 hole punch and PBS 1500 coil machine, both from Gateway Bookbinding Systems. But the effort was so successful, says Nichols, the shop now finds itself in the surprising position of having to tone down its recommendations.

"We have, in the past, tried to guide people [to plastic coil]," says Nichols, "but because there was such an increase in volume, we're now trying to guide them away from it."

Nichols says the reason his shop was so successful was that it took a hands-on approach to getting customers to buy into the then-new system.

"We would at one time go out to our divisions and departments marketing our own department, and saying that coil was the way to go," he says. Customers agreed with the shop, big time, and Nichols' in-plant soon found the inserter it was running simply did not work fast enough to keep up with all the orders.

So while the shop is looking for an upgrade, it's trying to recommend that some new customers try other machines.

Customers Crave Coil

At Missouri's Lincoln University, Print Shop Manager Gary Griffin says plastic coil binding is an easy sell because it looks so good. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, he says, but most of his beholders have been eyeing the shop's GBC gear.

"It accents the job a whole bunch," says the frequent ACUP conference attendee. "And that plays a very important part. The majority of the pieces that we do [are coil bound] because it just makes a job look more attractive."

But it's more than just looks that make plastic coil binding such a valuable addition to the shop, says Griffin. The stuff is just flat-out cheap.

"Plastic coil binding is truly kind of inexpensive to get into. Plastic is plastic," he says. "And it doesn't take an Einstein or a rocket scientist to figure out how to use the machines."

Griffin reports that 65 percent of the jobs the print shop binds are handled by the coil inserter. With that kind of volume directed at one machine, Griffin says he has designed the pricing structure very carefully to squeeze as much revenue as possible out of the bindery.

Careful pricing, say most managers, is how they make finishing profitable. Easy to sell and dirt-cheap, plastic coil may not make the evening news, but it's one of the surest ways to broaden a profit margin and build a stronger bindery.