JDF-Ready Stitcher Handles Short-Run Book Work

The development of the short to medium run saddle stitched books led to an investment in a Horizon Stitchliner system that has transformed operations at Rumbold Holland.

The Swindon (UK) B2 litho commercial printer, has turned round its performance on saddle stitched books with the Horizon system, supplied by Graphic Arts Equipment (GAE) after the new equipment replaced a conventional Muller Martini stitching line.

Operational flexibility, productivity and ease of operation are all reasons why the fully-automated collating, saddle stitching and three-knife trimming line has become one of GAE's top selling systems, said the company, with the Rumbold Holland system being the 100th UK installation, with B2 litho houses proving to be the leading area of response.

As well as improved efficiency on its saddle stitching work, the company is enjoying a number of other benefits, including collating eight-page sections for perfect binding and two-page inserts, which was work previously sent to outworkers.

The support service from GAE also helped in the choice of the Horizon system.

The JDF-ready Stitchliner features fully-automated make-readies and works from flat four-page section, eliminating the need to fold in to signatures to save time.

It runs at claimed speeds of 5,500 books per hour, has an icon-based LCD touch screen for set-up and job memory storage for job change over.

Wayne Rumbold, the joint managing director of Rumbold Holland, explained that the move to the Horizon equipment was prompted by changes in customer demand: "Our work profile has changed from long runs to short-to-medium runs so we needed a machine that combined fast make-readies with a good running speed.

Now job-to-job downtime is less than 20 minutes as opposed to two hours on our Muller system." He added: "It is more efficient and there is less marking and the ability to interrupt work for a quick job is a great bonus.

We can easily stop work put another job on and then go back to the long run job - it's a revelation.

Because operation is so simple, staff can be trained very quickly and they can easily move from one system to another.

It also means we don't have to wait for more skilled employees to be available.

GAE's training and installation were excellent and we were told exactly what the machine was capable of so we could understand how to best put it to good use." Bryan Godwyn, GAE's joint managing director, commented: "The Stitchliner is a unique hybrid system and its early success was amongst users of stitch-fold-trim lines looking to increase capacity who could see the benefit of eliminating pre-trimming and, of course, the genuine saddle-stitched finish.

Now B1 and B2 houses, already used to conventional saddle stitching lines, are beginning to appreciate the HOrizon system has a great deal to offer them too, by eliminating the folding process and offering complete run-length flexibility." Rumbold Holland has a variety of clients from the public, financial services and retail sectors.

The B2 specialist works directly with clients, or with them through third party companies, including marketing agencies and print management facilitators.

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