Innovation Days Features 20+ Vendors

For years, MBO America has hosted an open house at its Westampton, N.J., facility. Recently, though, the company turned this event into a mini trade show by inviting more than 20 leading providers of digital printing, on-demand finishing, mailing and gluing solutions to show their wares as well.

“We’re not Graph Expo, but we’re not just an open house any more,” observed Sharon McKenney, MBO marketing manager.

Called “Innovation Days,” the three-day show hosted approximately 300 visitors from all over the country. Equipment focused on real-world transactional printing and finishing applications, personalization, on-demand book/brochure production and sophisticated mailing solutions.

In several instances, exhibitors partnered to showcase complete end-to-end production systems featuring components from multiple vendors. On one of these “document factory” lines, A roll-fed Delphax CR2200 printed the black-and-white text for a book. It was sheeted on an Ehret SVC 520C sheeter, folded on an MBO Digifolder, then stacks of 12 signatures were collected and sent to a Muller Martini Sigma Binder. It ground the spine, added hot melt glue and wrapped a cover around it. After cooling, the book went into a Muller Martini Sigma Trimmer for a three-knife trim. Finished books came out every four seconds at a cost of $1.39 per book.

Educational seminars were held daily on topics such as digital finishing, large-format printing, gluing technologies, on-demand book printing, as well as business-building ideas for marketing variable data printing.