Generate Valuable New Revenue Streams with Bindery Add-ons

Today’s economic uncertainties have made one thing very clear: As the print industry evolves, printers and binderies must also evolve. They must be willing to look at every single one of their traditional operations, and make changes wherever possible, to keep pace with the technological and innovative developments that continue non-stop.

The good news is that there is significant opportunity to add new revenue streams to your bindery with some powerful add-ons that can not only expand your shop’s capabilities, but its client base as well. Ready for even better news? The add-ons and services we’ll describe below will justify a quicker ROI turn-around than could be obtained in three to 10 months on traditional equipment, depending on production demand.

1. Bindery controller. Whereas the printer might be the backbone of the inkjet system, the controller is its brains. This technology is integral to making sure a wide range of equipment, including saddle stitchers, perfect binders, and a variety of inserting equipment—all including complex high-speed co-mail systems—work seamlessly together.

The controller coordinates and tracks the movement of products through the finishing line, as well as transmits data to the printer and synchronizes it, ensuring the printer prints the correct job, on the correct substrates, at the right time. Bindery controllers are a necessity for demanding applications that require high-capacity, high-speed selective/demographic control, inkjet addressing, and in-line personalization, to name a few.

2. Inside/outside inkjetting. Perhaps the most ubiquitous and easy to justify of the add-ons available in today’s market, inkjetting lets binderies reap the benefits provided by the explosion in applications such as personalized addressing, messaging and regionalization.

The addition of an inkjet printer with demographic capabilities enables the customized printing of specific signatures to certain areas, be it newspapers, magazines, direct mail or catalogs. There are several different types, however, inside/outside inkjet systems provide the most flexibility, with the ability to print an address on a catalog’s outside cover, and again on the inside order form.

Inkjet systems vary greatly in complexity, with the simplest involving a printhead installed on a mail table. The next step up might be inkjetting on a selective binding line, where the system can control the feeders to create a different version of a catalog based on a variety of factors, including the recipient’s geographic region or area of interest. And it only gets more complex from there—systems can be designed and installed to fit the exact market and applications a shop plans to target.

3. Merchandise tipper. An inline merchandise tipper lets binderies offer tipping services while stitching at extremely high speeds. Merchandise—items such as CDs, DVDs, mini brochures, postcards and reply cards—can be tipped internally in the book or on the outside cover without incurring additional labor costs.

4. Mail table. Positioned after the trimmer, a mail table consists of inline conveyors that increase efficiency. The bindery controller sends the message to the inkjet printers so it knows to print specific names or messages.

A process called dot whacking can also be performed on the mail table. Dot whackers are labels that can be affixed to the front or back cover of a catalog, magazine or polybag. They’re typically used to draw attention to a special offer, such as a discount, free shipping, etc.

5. Center Cut Device, Trio cut. Instead of producing a one-up product, a center cut device allows the production of two books simultaneously, thereby doubling a machine’s production capability. The addition of a trio cut—which triples production—enables three-up production of smaller-sized products, including operating manuals, CD booklets, small size children’s books, coupon booklets, checkbooks and pharmaceutical inserts, to name a few possibilities.