An Upward Spiral

The math isn’t hard. Take six high schools each ordering about 2,000 academic planners at the beginning of the school year, and that’s … a lot of spiral binding. The in-plant at Salem-Kaizer Public Schools in Salem, Ore., was having a hard time keeping up with demand.

Ali-Andrea Johnson (left) and Brian Tully show off Salem-Kaizer Public Schools’ new James Burn Koilmatic PBS 2800 coil inserter (left) and GBC AP-2 Ultra automatic punch.

“We have about 95 buildings total, district-wide,” explains David Hughes, manager of custodial, property and auxiliary services. “And 20% of our work is for other agencies in the area.”

“The question was,” he continues, “were we going to step up our game, turn jobs away or outsource? We really believe strongly in serving our community from the inside, if we can.”

For that reason, Hughes and his team moved to abandon their three-step binding process in favor of a solution that was much faster.

“Before, everything had to be handled multiple times, so it was very slow,” Hughes explains. A Rhin-O-Tuff Onyx HD 7700 Ultima punched the holes, and it only punched about 20 sheets at a time. Next, a small, tabletop Akiles Finish@Coil Inserter added the coil. Finally, the job was moved to the Akiles Crimp@Coil for coil crimping and trimming.

Brian Tully demonstrates the coil inserting process.

Hughes says his 14-employee in-plant has grown by about 35% over the past few years, and this laborious binding process was no longer cutting it.

“So we did an evaluation and got approval to step it up,” he says.

The team reached out to a few manufacturers, asking for references of businesses that used their binding equipment. “Honestly, we couldn’t find anyone who was close to our area that we could visit,” he admits. “So we ended up doing most of our research on the phone and online, watching videos and talking to people.

“We started with a math equation from a labor-saving standpoint only,” Hughes explains. “What would be our return on investment? What would the time line look like? And then we worked backwards from there, asking what other capabilities the machines gave us, as far as capacity.”

Two-Machine Solution

The in-plant settled on two machines: a GBC AP-2 Ultra automatic punch, and a James Burn Koilmatic PBS 2800 tabletop inserter and crimper. The difference is like night and day.

“Whereas before, we were punching 20 sheets at a time, now we’re putting in an entire stack — and I don’t just mean a book; you can do multiple books,” Hughes explains. “I think the capacity is about 2,000 sheets.”

For example, he says, an 85-page book with three tabs and card stock front and back covers can be punched in less than four minutes. What’s more, the operator can perform the coil insertion while the punch machine is running. With the Koilmatic, the feed roll feeds the coil in and punches and crimps all in one motion.

So you’re basically getting a two-for-one on your labor,” Hughes notes.

The speedy process has allowed the in-plant to shorten its lead times. “We’re able to take large, in-house jobs that before would’ve been a struggle to get done on schedule, even working overtime. But now we’re able to keep up during our regular shift,” Hughes shares. “In addition, we also know we have the ability to do even more now, so that additional capacity has allowed us to reach out to our neighboring areas.”

Hughes says his in-plant is just now starting to handle more student curriculum, but the new binding equipment isn’t used for that quite yet.

“We’re still stapling the spines of the booklets we do for them,” he explains. “But there’s conversation about going to coil. If that might increase the life of those materials, I think it’s got some potential to branch out in that way.”