Could bookletmaking be a rewarding market to enter?
Bounding towards success
Booklets and brochures are a favoured marketing tool as they catch the attention of consumers whilst showcasing your company information, services, and offerings all in one place. Rather than relying on consumers actively seeking out this information via a website for example, brochures, booklets, and flyers can be strategically mailed or placed in relevant public areas.
As consumers like to pick up and feel print, brochures can be used to promote products using high quality images and print finishings to generate excitement about products in a way a computer screen cannot.
Magazines, leaflets, electoral campaign booklets, marketing campaigns, promotional print – there is plenty of opportunity for business when offering bookletmaking services. With the right kit, bookletmaking can be a rewarding market to be in.
With that in mind, we spoke to some of the businesses operating in this sector – both manufacturers and end-users – to find out what technology is currently on the market, and how it could boost business.
Something for everyone
Morgana Systems provides a range of offline post-press products for digital and small offset post-press tasks, and parent company Plockmatic International produces bookletmakers for inline use, selling directly to digital print machine suppliers.
Morgana’s latest bookletmaking products are designed to make the production of A4 landscape and oversize booklets cost effective and straightforward. The BM5035 and BM5050 handle sheets of up to 620mm in length and have been engineered for mid-to-high volume customers, and both models come with heavy duty stapling heads featuring a 5,000-staple cartridge.
O Factoid: Morgana’s BM5035 and BM3035 models can handle 35 sheets creating up to 140-page booklets O
Able to staple and fold up to 50 sheets of 80gsm, the BM5050 and BM3050 can create booklets of up to 200-pages. The BM5035 and BM3035 can handle 35 sheets creating up to 140-page booklets, and the BM5035S and BM5050S feature the latest stitching head from Morgana. This head enables users to adjust the length of stitch for thicker books without the need for tools.
The Morgana BM5050S has four stitching heads and spooled wire for stitching
The whole Morgana offline and Plockmatic inline range can produce booklets with a perfect bound look using its patented “SquareFold” spine technology. This means the spine can be printed on with the brochures easier to pack and ship.
Morgana and Plockmatic’s patented “SquareFold” spine technology
Ray Hillhouse, vice president of sales and marketing for the Plockmatic Group Offline Business Unit, adds: “An even lower cost per copy can be achieved with the BM5050S, with its four stitching heads, and spooled wire for stitching. Users will be able to finish jobs of up to 35 sheets that have been imposed two-up on a sheet, for higher productivity and efficiency.
“The latest design of the stitching head on the S model also has the ability to use coloured nylon coated stitching wire to coordinate with a coloured book spine – effectively hiding the stitch.”
The Morgana PowerSquare 160 bookletmaker is capable of producing A4 landscape booklets
As well as the offerings already mentioned, the Morgana PowerSquare 224VF and 160VF are bookmaking systems for offline books of up to 224 pages and 160 pages, respectively. Hillhouse explains this technology: “The addition of the Vacuum Feed dual bin feeding system aids continuous production, ideal for larger run lengths.
The addition of the Vacuum Feed dual bin feeding system aids continuous production, ideal for larger run lengths”
“Four processes: stitching, folding, spine forming, and trimming are conducted in one compact machine. The unique SquareFold system creates a square-back to the publication, giving the effect of a perfect bound book.”
Hillhouse also explains how automated settings for different book sizes and paginations allow up to eight stitches to be placed along the book spines. This is ideal for multiple-up copies of smaller publications and reduces unit cost.
The Morgana VFX dual bin vacuum feeder is available to front Morgana’s BM3000 and BM5000 series as well as its PowerSquare products. This technology consistently feeds a range of stock and the Active Process Control Sensor monitors sheet position and air flow. Up to 5,400 sheets can be loaded across the two bins with automatic bin switching allowing one bin to be loaded whilst the other continues to run – eliminating interrupted runs.
Responding to a surge in variable data printing over the last year, the VFX can also be fitted with barcode reading to allow for variable data printing of booklets with variable page counts.
For businesses looking to enter the bookletmaking market for the first time, Hillhouse recommends the BM 60 bookletmaker as a “compact and simple” option. This is down to its ability to saddle staple and fold booklets of up to 22-sheets of 80gsm paper to produce a brochure of up to 88 pages.
Fill in the gaps
Lincoln Print & Copy Centre has described how it has been able to fill a gap in the marketplace after investing in a KASfold A4 short-run landscape bookletmaker. Having invested in a Xerox V280 printer, the firm later installed a KAS K640 bookletmaker from Ashgate Automation.
Lincoln Print & Copy Centre with its KASfold booklet maker
For years, Lincoln Print & Copy had produced short-run A3 folded to A4 booklets, as well as A5 and A6 formats. The firm recalls having to turn down request for short-run A4 booklets as it wasn’t sustainable to outsource the job for orders of under 100 copies.
Karen Arnold, director of the firm knew of the KASfold bookletmaker and Ashgate as her parents had one of their machines when they were at the head of the company. She says: “I looked on [Ashgate’s] website and saw a video of the K640 being demonstrated, read the specification and knew that it was the right machine for our needs. I didn’t need to visit their showroom because I had confidence in the company.
The K640, unlike some other models I researched, is affordably priced, ensuring that we can produce short-runs profitably”
“As for its features, physically it’s quite compact which is important because space is at a premium. The K640, unlike some other models I researched, is affordably priced, ensuring that we can produce short-runs profitably.”
Lincoln had two jobs ready to go before the installation from local estate agents who wanted brochures. Arnold describes how the K640 is ideal for this type of work as can finish a range of stock including coated, uncoated, and silk. “The initial interest has convinced us that we have found a gap in the marketplace for A4 landscape booklets and look forward to this investment bringing in new business.”
A puzzle-like machine
Whilst the Hohner HHS-Futura has been around for over 10 years, new developments have led to supplier, Friedheim describing it as arguably one of the most unique and versatile offerings for the bookletmaking market.
Described as a “puzzle-like machine”, the core of the HHS-Futura is made of the Hohner stitching unit and trimmer. Building on this core, the machine can be used in a minimum of 17 installation combinations and can be fitted with up to five input stations, serving both traditional litho and digital markets. The five inputs options are roll-feed, flat pile, tower, traditional litho section, and a folder direct.
The HHS has four feeders: cover, horizontal, vertical, and compact Plano Sheet Feeder, all of which can be used independently or combined for saddle stitching.
For digital finishing from both printed web and sheets, the machine can become a DIGI-Finisher by adding the buckle folder T50 of MBO Postpress Solutions. For fold-stitching the Foldstitcher FS module allows a production inline through folding plates of the integrated fold machine.
For crossfolding, MBO Postpress Solutions provides the K70 module which allows the FUTURA to fold products in B1 format for products such as flyers for medium and high print run lengths. Finally, the Hohner-designed collating tower module allows users to operate an adapted non-stop production. The infeed width of 364mm and sheet length of 610mm is able to handle small formats of 160 x 120mm as well as a landscape format of 267 x 610mm.
Robin Brown, digital sales manager at Friedheim explains why the machine is unique: “It’s designed to fit in all areas of stitching, be it digital or traditional litho. Being able to feed from traditional litho inputs puts it into an area where no other stitcher goes.”
According to Brown, the versatility of this machine means that it can fit into all areas of businesses, and whilst it’s a meaty choice for an entry-level machine, Brown says this isn’t out of the question.
“It does do an entry-level, but it’s a big-entry level,” he says, adding: “You’re not on your small cut sheet-end digital printers, it’s a bit higher up than that because it can fit in all areas of business.
“If you’re a digital secure booklet printer, it fits perfectly. If you are a traditional litho printer who produces large amounts of book, it fits perfectly. It’s all relative to the in-feed you would put on it. The five input values make it very, very unique.”
Putting heads together
The Finishing Point (TFP) has recently been working on a major project with online printer, Bluetree Group, to explore ways to improve production and reduce wate in its bindery and bookletmaking sectors. According to TFP, Bluetree has been proactively working on a “right first time” initiative to improve production and eliminate errors, with TFP helping to bring the two initiatives together.
Nathan Dennison, production manager of Bluetree Group with James Robertson, director of TFP
TFP’s company strapline “Together we create a better finish” came into its own during the project, which was led by director, James Robertson who has a background in project management. A key part of the project was identifying what causes waste. This was explored through a questionnaire which was given to all machine operators, and interviews with team leaders, engineers, and senior managers.
According to Robertson, the response from Bluetree has been “incredibly positive” with management keen to involve staff of all levels. He says: “Reducing waste, improving production and increasing profitability is a priority for all printers and some of the findings from this project will no doubt be useful to many of the companies we work with.”
Operators of all levels were asked questions about their experiences of working on the Horizon Stitchliners with a focus on what training they had received and what training they would like to receive. The operators were also asked about their experience of running the machines at different speeds, with different finishes, any faults that occurred and how this impacted production and as a result, increased waste.
An engineer operating a Horizon Stitchliner
With the information having been collected over a number of weeks, the TFP team are now collating the data and will report back the findings to Bluetree. These findings will be used to implement change such as the creation of bespoke training packages.
Victoria Robertson, director of TFP adds: “Some of these operators are very experienced, others are only just beginning. We have very quickly realised that training packages cannot be one size fits all.
“We will be working towards training that meets the needs of differing individuals and designing training sessions that allow for differing modes of learning. We are excited to be working with the team at Bluetree on this project and look forward to seeing some positive outcomes.”
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