Finishing Solutions
Morgana Systems’ BM4000 suite of bookletmakers provide the solution for work with low to mid volume digital production printers. The BM4050 delivers booklets of exceptional quality, and is able to feed long printed sheets to produce a wide variety of applications, including A4 landscape booklets, which are becoming increasingly popular with customers.
‘We had been outsourcing an ever increasing amount of binding work. When we examined the numbers in detail, and the amount of margin that we were giving away, it was clear that we should now be producing this work in-house with our own equipment,’ said Peter Haddad, managing director of Apprintable.
‘The new bookletmaker is very robust – and it just eats up the work, faster than we can print it sometimes. There is no doubt that it could keep up with two print engines working full time – but that is for the future. The fact that we can use the two bins on the feeder to produce the jobs at high speed – one bin for the heavier weight, laminated cover perhaps, and the second bin for the inner pages – is just great for now. It really does produce booklets quickly and efficiently,’ he added.
Currently the company has one full time engine, a Xerox Versant 280, with its predecessor, a Ricoh Pro C5300s, still retained as a back up for those really busy days.
Booklets produced with recycled paper is a niche where Apprintable is winning work at the moment. ‘Customers are keen to find a supplier that can produce print using recycled stock, and there appears to be only a small number of online producers out there that are able to offer a solution at a reasonable price,’ added Peter
The purchase of a new guillotine has also helped speed up production on the shop floor. ‘Our previous guillotine was fairly basic – yes, it cut paper, but the new EBA ideal 56 can store a multitude of different cut combinations. It can then guide the operator through each stage of the process – telling them when to turn the paper, and when to cut. It really does speed up the whole process, and it is usable by any of our team. You don’t need to be a guillotine expert anymore,’ said Peter.
Going back to the BM4050 binder, Peter added: ‘I particularly like the fact that the machine is so easy to set up – that is important when you have inexperienced operators using it. The SquareBack finish is a great enhancement for us to speak to people about – it is not something that we were ever offered when we were outsourcing, so it is a new feature for our customers. The ‘perfect bound’ appearance is something to promote to graphic designers, in that the spine that can now be printed on for the larger pagination booklets.’
When talking of jobs processed to date, one larger, same day job came to mind – 1600 books, 28 pages, printing and binding. ‘We imaged a portion of the text pages so that we could get the binding started, whilst then running the rest of the job on the print engine. It all worked well, and we got the job out on time,; he explained. A fine example of where outsourcing the binding just wouldn’t have worked.
The business has grown quickly, and moved to larger premises in September, 2022. It is now housed in site in an industrial part of Wembley. ‘We have invested over a quarter of a million pounds in the past two and a half years into our own production equipment, despite the circumstances of the pandemic and recent toughening of market conditions,’ added Peter.
The Morgana Systems BM4000 series of bookletmakers produce consistently high quality booklets in a wide range of sizes and media types. The basic configuration, with hand feed capability, enables users to make booklets in an offline mode, meaning that one binder can service multiple print engines.
BM4050 can produce corner stapled documents in portrait A4, as well as edge stapled documents in portrait, plus the popular landscape A4, with up to 200 page booklet capacity. The unit can also support long sheets of up to 660 mm, without the creasing and side slitting module (CST) or 620 mm with CST.
The unit’s heavy duty staple mechanism has been designed for durability, and is maintenance free thanks to a patented solution that eliminates periodic service intervals. Users are able to adjust both the staple and fold positions though the easy initial set up. The BM4000 series machines have a patented ‘set positioning mechanism’ that allows the operator to adjust the staple position and the direction of travel from the intuitive user interface.
Operators can now also compensate for the skew caused when feeding long sheets with a simple adjustment in the user interface, on the fly. Apprintable can now produce SquareFold booklets in sizes from A6 to A4 landscape, or in the larger A4 square format 297 x 297 mm.
Commenti