Bindery Overhaul Brings Work Back 
In-house at Cornell

Kevin Drake recalls the days at Cornell University when in-plant employees were using an older Harris bookletmaker to create booklets for campus clients. The process was labor-intensive and the machine needed to be tended the whole time it was running, Drake says.

The Ithaca, N.Y.-based university in-plant turned over a new leaf in January 2010, when it installed a Duplo DBM-350 bookletmaker, along with a DSF2000 sheet feeder, DC-645 slitter/creaser/cutter and Hefter PL104 squareback folder.

"The Duplo bookletmaker directly replaced the Harris, and the squareback folder goes at the end of the bookletmaker," explains Drake, assistant director of Cornell Business Services. "You end up with a nice, flat spine on the booklet. That gave us a fairly significant improvement in overall appearance quality of the finished product."

Since the DBM-350 is computer controlled, the shop can create and store commonly used jobs and doesn't need to recreate the setup every time it produces booklets.

"We looked at other vendors but, quite honestly, my first exposure to the Duplo bookletmaker that we ultimately ended up purchasing was at the On Demand show in Philadelphia two or three years ago," Drake points out. "We had it in the back of our minds that the next advancements we needed to make were in our bindery capabilities."

Drake made sure he checked out the equipment in operation several times before making the purchase. The new bindery equipment—and particularly the the DC-645 slitter/creaser/cutter—has allowed the in-plant to move all of its business card production back in-house.

"In order to do that, we had to reduce the amount of touch that business cards require, in terms of getting them cut and stacked and ready to process out the door," Drake says.

With the addition of the DC-645, the shop can create and store parameters for each crease job and minimize cracking, even on heavier stock materials.

"We run a lot of jobs though the creaser to get that nice, square crease on the page," Drake contends.

Cornell University's seven-employee in-plant is self-supporting and does not receive any university funds. The new bindery equipment has allowed the shop to slightly elevate the price structure that goes along with producing a higher-quality end product.

"To date, we have received no customer complaints about the modest uptick in the charge versus the significant benefits in quality from using this equipment," Drake concludes.