Bindery - Finishing

Bindery equipment is often a secondary thought for printers. Sometimes they put up with inferior equipment for years, even though it's clearly slowing down their productivity.

Standard Finishing Systems partner Hunkeler reported another successful Innovationdays event in Lucerne, Switzerland last month. Integrated total solutions from software to finished product spanned the hall with a special focus on uptime, productivity, and ease-of-use. During the opening day press conference, Hunkeler also announced positive business results for 2012 and further expansion of its Wikon headquarters.

Standard Finishing Systems has announced two new installs—a new Standard Horizon VAC-1000 collator and ST-40 inline stacker at SpringDot of Cincinnati; and a Standard Horizon BQ-270V automated perfect binder and Standard Horizon HT-30C automated three-side trimmer at Usherwood Office Tehnology's Syracuse, NY location.

After being restricted from making any purchases for about two years, Steven Dimond, manager of MIT Copytech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, knew what his first move would be when the buying ban was lifted. Last year, he made that move when his in-plant installed a Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C8000 and a Konica Minolta bizhub PRO C6501.

Mark McCarty, Printing Services Manager at Missouri State University, needed more automation and reliability in his in-plant's bindery. The Springfield, Mo., shop had gone through some cuts, reducing the staff from five full-time employees to just two full-timers.

Each school year, the Harford County Public Schools, based in Bel Air, Md., gives every pupil a student planner—a book in which they can write down homework assignments and where parents and teachers can communicate with each other.

Rich Bauer, superintendent of Printing and Duplicating Services at Southern Illinois University, updated his Carbondale, Ill., in-plant with several pieces of new bindery equipment last year, including a Morgana DigiFold Pro creaser/folder, a Morgana CardXtra automatic business card slitter, Xyron 4400 laminator, a second Pitney Bowes DI 950 four-feeder tower with inserter, and a Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS 1250 with in-line finishing features.

Will we ever go back to long-run offset work? Is the variability and one-off flexibility of the digital press turning the old, heavy iron obsolete? If the Obama-Romney rhetoric parade of 2012 taught us anything, it's that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

Spiel Associates has decided to hold an open house on Nov. 6-7, 2012, in its facility located on 45-01 Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, NY. Those who could not make the trip to GRAPH EXPO 2012 will get a second chance to see Spiel’s line of impressive new bindery equipment.

Logistics Management Institute recently upgraded the finishing capabilities of its Office Services department by installing a new Duplo near-line booklet making system in its McLean, Va., facility. Comprising the DSF-2000 sheet feeder, the DBM-500 booklet maker, the slit/cut/crease unit, and the ASM-500 square spine module, the new equipment is being used to produce marketing material and signature booklets for LMI, and to score tri-fold flyers and cards.