Portland In-plant serving Northwest Natural boosts productivity with Duplo bindery equipment

Bindery equipment is often very durable, leading some in-plants to keep it on the floor for a long time. That said, few shops have managed to keep a folder in operation as long as NW Natural’s Office Services department.

“The Baum was a 1940s friction feed industrial model,” says Operator David Hendrick, who jokes, “It struck fear in the hearts of individuals.”

It was also very slow, creating a bottleneck at the Portland, Ore.-based in-plant. To improve productivity, the operation recently underwent a major bindery overhaul. It installed range of Duplo equipment, including:

A System 3500 Dynamic Booklet Maker connected with a DSF-2000 sheet feeder
A DC-615 slitter/cutter/creaser
A DF-920 tabletop folder

The equipment was sold and installed by Graphic Arts Supply Co., a local Duplo dealer. Of all the machines installed, none has been as valuable in both time and money as the DF-920. Hendrick says it has freed up a lot of his time, allowing him to do other things.

“I just press a button and walk away,” he says. “We had one employee say ‘buying the folder was the best money the company ever spent.’ ”

Office Services handles both printing and mailing for NW Natural, a gas utility company serving the Pacific Northwest. Though there are 13 employees in the department, Hendrick is the only one in the printing area. The in-plant prints a variety of jobs for NW Natural—everything from marketing materials and postcards, to booklets and quick cards, which are pocket-sized information cards for employees.

The main departments in the company that use the in-plant are the marketing department, corporate communications and the NW Natural Appliance Center (the company sells gas appliances from a store in southeast Portland).

Another of the recent purchases, the System 3500 bookletmaker, also makes Hendrick beam because it is such a vast improvement over the previous equipment, which “would make booklets as long at they were the same size [11x17˝],” he says. “You also had to feed it by hand, one book at a time.”

It’s much different now. The DSF-2000 feeder processes pre-collated sets at up to 200 sheets per minute into the bookletmaker/trimmer, where they are then accumulated, stitched, folded and face trimmed into professional booklets. With its new equipment, the in-plant has been able to both increase productivity and reduce costs.

“We are able to do more jobs in-house with great efficiency, saving the company money,” affirms Marilyn Webber, supervisor of Office Services.