Standard Finishing Systems

Programmable cutters put the bindery in-line with the rest of your equipment, boosting productivity. Automation fever—catch it. Better than the flu and more important to your well being than the office coffee pot, automation in paper cutting is fast becoming the next big thing. "Say you got some little 3-1⁄2x7˝ job," proposes Roland Stroud, production manager at the Mays Mission For The Handicapped in-plant, in Heber Springs, Ark. "You can program it so you only have to hit the button once. That way one person can be sitting there boxing while the machine is cutting by itself." And that, in a nutshell, is

Automation in setup and changeover make today's folding machines easier to use than ever. Learn how your in-plant can benefit. NICHOLAS MONELLO has been in printing for 40 years. He knows what to look for in a folder. "A state-of-the-art folder, with computerized and electronic input controls," he says. "Also, very important is having quick changeover capabilities to different sizes or features." As print shop director for the New York City Department of Health Graphic Services, it's Monello's job to know the industry. His supervisor, Graphic Services Director Bruce Krueger, says the in-plant uses an MBO B-18, an MBO T-49 and a Baum Ultrafold

In-plants are often called on to produce a variety of jobs in a short amount of time. Look for a collator that can meet your demanding needs. PRODUCTIVITY. RELIABILITY. Accuracy of set-up. Ease of changeover. Ease of use. Versatility. These are the key features in-plant managers should look for in a collator, according to Mark Hunt, marketing manager for Standard Finishing Systems. Since in-plants will need to use a collator for a variety of jobs, an easy-to-use and versatile system is crucial. "In an in-plant environment you may be asked to run a wide variety of stocks through the machine," Hunt explains. "You don't

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

Printers showed up in force to see the latest in graphic arts technology and learn how E-Commerce might affect their futures. From all reports, Graph Expo 99 was a huge success. According to the Graphic Arts Show Co., which organized the event, 45,217 people took part—including numerous in-plant managers who stopped to chat with In-Plant Graphics' staff at our booth. All told, the show's 622 exhibitors occupied more than 430,000 net square feet of booth space. IPG spent three days walking the show floor at Chicago's McCormick Place, examining the new equipment and talking to the numerous E-Commerce vendors. Here's what

On-demand printing may not be as cutting edge a topic as it was in the early '90s, but that didn't stop nearly 20,000 people from descending on the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York for the recent On Demand Digital Printing and Publishing Strategy Conference and Exposition. The conference, now in its sixth year, featured 275 exhibits along with daily keynotes and conference sessions. In-Plant Graphics moderated several sessions and attended many more. (Our full report will appear in a future issue.) Personalization seemed to be the big topic this year, with several vendors combining variable data with color printing to

Automation and compatibility with digital printing equipment have revolutionized stitching equipment, making operator involvement almost obsolete. "Automation, automation, automation," declares Rick Trapilo, general manager and executive vice president of C.P. Bourg. This, he says, is the primary trend typifying today's stitching equipment. Since operator skill levels vary greatly, Trapilo says, stitching equipment companies are making significant changes to reduce operator involvement. "Threading a stitch head could be difficult for some operators," Trapilo explains. "We're virtually taking that setup issue out of the equation for an in-plant manager." Some automated features now include self-loading, self-threading and operator warning systems in the event of

Computerization is making cutters easier to use and helping in-plant managers deal with the steady decline in skilled operators. For cutting machines, technological innovation seems to have reached a point past which most further improvements and features seem superfluous. Indeed, today's machines operate about as quickly, efficiently and safely as anyone can reasonably expect. One factor, however, promises to influence the design of these machines for the foreseeable future: The lack of skilled operators to run them. "I haven't yet spoken to a single plant manager who hasn't said it's hard to find skilled help," says David Spiel, vice president of Spiel

What are you looking for in a collator? Find out what manufacturers suggest. WHEN YOU complete a printing job that meets your client's specifications, adding the finishing touches are like putting the icing on a cake. It adds oomph. But when an otherwise beautifully perfect-bound book is botched up with sloppy and seemingly careless stapling and stitching, elegance goes out the door and disappointment comes flying in. Nowhere was this more apparent than during the recent judging of In-Print® 98, the joint In-Plant Graphics/International Publishing Management Association printing contest. The judges, meticulous and discriminating in their approach, eliminated many otherwise beautifully printed

Dallas was cold, but the topics were hot at Xplor's 18th annual document systems conference. Have you gotten any advertising postcards in the mail lately? Any brochures or newsletters? Bet you have. And I bet you tossed some of them with barely a glance. But what if, during that glance, you spotted your name? And what if, instead of useless, generic topics, the copy was about one of your main interests? You'd read it, wouldn't you? We're talking about targeted marketing, using variable data. It's nothing new. Nothing profound. But it may be something you hadn't thought your shop could provide.