Saddlestitch - Is It Your Niche?

Saddlestitching could be the reliable and inexpensive binding method you have been looking for.

Producing booklets used to be a much tougher job for the employees at Northern Arizona University Creative Communications. They had to hand collate sheets, fold them on a Stahl folder, three-way trim them on another unit, and then use a Rosback 201 stitcher to finish them. The alternative was to outsource the work.

That all changed when the in-plant purchased a new Duplo DC10000S collator with an inline DBM200 stitch/fold unit and a DC-48TW face trim unit.

"Now that we have it in, we are finding so many uses for it," says Vic Barkin, printing and reproduction services manager. "We're taking in booklet jobs that otherwise would have been outsourced."

The in-plant averages 20 to 25,000 booklets a month, he says, with some jobs totaling more than 10,000 booklets.

Scores of in-plants use saddlestitching equipment to finish the many journals, marketing materials, booklets and reports they produce for their parent companies. Many others should consider adding stitching gear. But what should they look for in a machine?

Avoid High Maintenance Models

Tom Hagemin, product manager for ISP Stitching & Bindery Products, suggests that in-plant managers look for machines that require a minimum of maintenance. To satisfy this concern, ISP recently reengineered the stitch head its products use, and now offers the M2000. ISP looked at all the high-friction areas and tried to avoid unnecessary lubrication, Hagemin explains. With the M2000, users need to lubricate the head less frequently.

"The stitching head is the key component," Hagemin says. The less maintenance that is necessary and the more reliable the stitch head, the better the product, he feels.

"Now all you have to do is add some oil droplets to a felt pad on top of every spool—you never clean the head until a million cycles," Hagemin says of the M2000 stitch head.

When looking to bring in some new saddlestitching gear, Ralph Pasquariello, postpress sales manager for Heidelberg USA, gives these tips on what to look for:

• Flexibility.

• Ease of operation.

• Two-up capability to maximize throughput.

• Look for a stitcher with a stand-up pocket. More signatures will fit in the pocket and it will be easier to load. Also, for in-plants with few employees, it will take up less of the operator's time.

Productivity and quality are also key factors, says Mark Hunt, marketing manager for Standard Finishing Systems.

"The device needs to be highly productive at a competitive level," he explains. "As in-plants struggle to justify their competitive position relative to outsourcing, the quality ingredient has to be very important. You don't want to make any compromises."

When To Stitch

For certain applications saddlestitching is a reliable and cost effective answer. But there are some situations when its better to go a different route when binding.

"You can only saddlestitch realistically up to about 1⁄8˝ or 3⁄16˝, because if you go beyond that the book lays wide open," says Hagemin of ISP. "You get to 3⁄16˝ or 1⁄4˝ and saddlestitching doesn't make sense because its not going to be a very attractive book."

But for smaller books, saddlestitching is the right choice, he notes.

"Generally, people stick to saddlestitching when they are running books of about 1⁄8˝ or less," reports Hagemin. "Then it is a very quick and economical way to bind books."

Saddlestitching lends itself better to applications done on large offset presses, says Steve Calov, stitching and binding specialist for Heidelberg USA, distributor of Stahl finishing gear. Larger signatures can be folded down quickly then stitched, without collating concerns.

"A lot of people want to get away from 20-bin collators and instead just have three or four pockets for saddlestitching," Calov says. This will cut down on equipment and storage space requirements. But costs can also be a concern.

"A small, entry-level saddlestitcher is going to be less expensive than an entry-level, fully automatic perfect binder," adds Bill Klansco, product manager for Muller Martini. He notes that the consumable costs are also lower, with wire being a cheaper option than glue.

Ron Bowman, vice president of sales and marketing for Rosback, feels that the durability of stitched materials, along with the clean appearance of the end product, makes saddlestitching a desirable binding option. He says it is a versatile application, since anything that can be folded can be stitched.

Speeding The Process

Computerized units have helped speed up the makeready process, vendors say, as well as helped users find problems and paper jams. This has lowered the need for a highly experienced binder to run the machinery.

"Operators are spending more time running the machine and less time figuring out why the machine isn't running," points out Klansco, of Muller Martini.

Digital printing's force is also being felt within the finishing industry. Vendors report they are seeing a high demand for short-run jobs to be bound. Personalized documents are giving in-plants no room for production errors in the bindery.

"The tolerance for waste or for mis-stitched books is dropping," says Hunt of Standard Finishing. "Customers are no longer willing to pay the extra amount to overprint jobs."

This has led to vendors rethinking the saddlestitching process to meet the needs of customers. Also a recent demand for smaller booklets, like CD inserts, has caused vendors to adapt.

"We've been challenged—and we have met that challenge in the industry," Klansco of Muller Martini concludes.

Quick Look

• In-plants that have added saddlestitching gear have created new ways to use it.

• Look for a stitcher that is flexible and easy to operate.

• Saddlestitching is a less expensive option than perfect binding.

• Books that are 1⁄8˝ or less are best suited to saddlestitching.

• Computerized equipment has lowered makeready times, requiring less-experienced operators.