Finishing is where significant bottom line gains can be made, but only with plenty of attention to detail, reports Wayne Robinson
Printers looking to make efficiency gains, provide value add services, attract new customers, reduce costs and improve their bottom line would do well to look at their finishing area, for it is here that all the above can be realised.For a long time finishing was seen as a necessary but fruitless part of the business, a cost centre rather than a profit centre. Purchasing decisions were often made on the basis of what the press vendor would throw in with that new five colour machine that you wanted.
However as all aspects of the printing business evolve the spotlight has focused on finishing as a key area in which the printer can score several goals at once, including offering customers value added solutions, so differentiating themselves and achieving the higher goal of bottom line gains.
Almost ten years ago, Jet Technologies identified a growing customer demand for print to be embellished in order to make them ‘stand out from the pack’. With that in mind, Jet Technologies set up its finishing products division. In the time that Jet has been developing and growing the print business has changed dramatically too – Jet director Jack Malki says, “Where ten years ago there were just a handful of finishers in each city, that number has swelled dramatically as more competitors have sprouted, and printers look to bring the work in-house with their own equipment.”
Charlie Scandrett, mananging director of Pressnet which supplies a range of finshing solutions says, “As the cost and reliability of finishing equipment comes down, and the skill needs reduce, finishing can be quite profitable on its own. As with all production decisions, it is a capital cost-productivity-wages formula that determines if finishing is a profit centre or deadline assistance only.”
Shaun Thiele, print and bindery manager at MAN Ferrostaal says, “Trade binders and printers tend to come at finishing from two different perspectives. The trade binder not surprisingly puts a lot of thought into all aspects of finishing, and reaps the rewards from doing so. Trade binders will tend to look at total cost of ownership, cost of consumables, service issues. For instance if a printer has a belt driven folder, like the MBO, rather than a gear driven folder, and it breaks down at 2am, the operator simply puts on another belt, takes about 15 minutes. But for the gear driven folder he has to wait until the next day to get a technician out. Trade finishers will also look at the lifecycle of folder rollers, and there can be major differences, here, some may last a couple of years, others a dozen, and clearly that has cost and reliability issues.”
Labour is a key cost in finishing, with reduction in labour cost a prime target. David Smith, finishing demonstrator at CPI says, “Labour is the highest cost in the bindery, and an area that finishing equipment siupplied by CPI seeks to address through high automation and innovative solutions.” According to Smith the Baumann paper handling equipment to accompany guillotines will reduce the labour requirement by one person per shift. Similarly the stream feeder option on the Osako saddlestitchers reduces the labour requirement, by automatically feeding the sections in to the hopper.
In theory the highest efficiencies can be gained through the implementation of a JDF / CIP4 solution across the entire print factory, including the bindery. Opinions are divided on the reality of this, some think the benefits are irresistible, while others think that the bindery is so automated anyway that the hassle and cost of implementing JDF mean the gains are outweighed by the problems. According to Thiele some Australian printers are now looking at JDF, and he says, “Again printers need to ask serious questions in respect of the investment and the value it delivers, for themselves and for their customers.”
Streamlining is one of the four key demands that Heidelberg ANZ is hearing from printers, says postpress product manager Brian Evans, with makeready, speed and ease of operation making up the quartet. Evans says, “Savvy printers are looking at their whole process, rather than at the isolated components, and are looking to gain efficiencies through streamlining, for instance through the use of air tables for guillotines.”
Evans says that data exchange from prepress to finishing is increasing as tight margins drive printers to look at ways to increase efficiencies and keep costs down in their production environments.
Bernie Robinson, sales director at Currie says the says the CIP4 / JDF revolution has yet to take off, but believes it will happen, he says, “In fact we have just installed the first Horizon CIP4 solution into a printer, in a regional town.”
According to Robinson printers are these days looking at the finishing area as a place where they can differentiate through added value, and they definitely want to gain efficiencies. He says, “The new range of Horizon intelligent print finishing solutions, with touchscreen control and full automation are having a significant impact on productivity, certainly in short run as the set up times are reduced and mistakes minimised.”
Reducing the investment necessary on finishing equipment is becoming increasingly important, particularly to the smaller printers. One option is to buy kit made in China, and that is now starting to make its way into Australia. Anyone who was at China Print earlier in the year will have seen the huge number of Chinese finishing equipment manufacturers now plying their trade.
Another route for reducing investment is highlighted by the likes of Wohlenberg, who are now starting to look at ways of producing their solutions for a lower cost. CPI Graphics supplies Wohlenberg in this country, and their national print finishing demonstrator, David Smith says, “For smaller printers price is key, and if they can live with a lower specified guillotine for instance then Wohlenberg is wanting to accommodate them.”
While mainstream commercial printers have been operating in a tightening market for the past 18 months the digital print sector has continued to grow, and so has its demand for finishing. CPI’s David Smith says, “The demand is for offline, online and near line solutions from digital printers. They also want equipment that is very easy to operate, as they may not have the skill required for normal commercial finishing.”
According to Smith training for the CP Bourg, Challenge and Plockmatic digital finishing solutions supplied by CPI takes just two or three hours. Makeready is key of course in digital, wastage has to be a minimum, no point having to produce 120 brochure s for a run of 20 just to accommodate finishing waste. Smith says two or three copies at most should be used in makeready. He points to the example of the Bourg perfect binder, “It is a one clamp binder, you drop in the sections, it gauges them, cuts the spines, applies the glue, scores and applies the cover. There is no human makeready, and the whole thing is done in less than a minute.”
Curries has the Horizon Stitchliner 5500 aimed specifically at the digital print world, Bernie Robinson says, “It is designed for ease of use, does not require a high skill set, is flexible and offers a range of finishing solutions. Digital print companies want their jobs produced quickly, easily and with minimum waste.” Horizon in fact is engaged in joint development work with Swiss company Hunkeler, which in recent years has reinvented itself from a high end direct mail solutions provider into a digital print finishing outfit.
There is debate in the digital world about the merits of inline or near line finishing. Near line effectively means units on wheels that can be moved around, while inline is more or less permanently affixed to one digital print engine. Clearly for companies producing mainly one type of work off one digital press then inline offers great benefits, while for those that work to a more jobbing approach near line may suit them better.
Going inline can also be a requirement for sensitive work, for instance documents that deal with people’s finances, medical records or other private information to ensure the right pages make it only to the intended recipient. Some clients will actually write it in the contract that finishing has to be done inline for security reasons.
Grant Churchill, sales manager at GBC, which is one of the leading suppliers of finishing solutions to digital print companies says inline works well in high volume markets such as the US, but Australia’s smaller run lengths tend to mitigate against it. He says, “Inline can slow down the digital print process, while near line gives a great flexibility.”
According to Churchill that the benefits of automated finishing solutions are being recognised by the digital print businesses, he says, “Companies that are producing digital print are understanding that finishing can become a real bottleneck, especially if it is done manually, which for very short run work it sometimes is. However there is no point having an on demand digital print shop if the job is being held up, and after all you can have the top of the line digital print engine, but hardly anyone buys flat sheets, the job has to be finished.”
Churchill points to kit such as the Duplo 645 slitter cutter creaser as an ideal solution to the needs of digital printers. He says, “The Duplo provides efficiency and versatility. And these days particularly in the digital print field there is virtually no demarcation, the same person operating the print engine will be running the Duplo, answering the phones and serving the customers.”
According to Churchill JDF is not making a major impact in the smaller printer or digital print house, but increasingly the use of barcodes for job integrity is coming into play. He says, “In busy print rooms it is essential that jobs are produced as intended, for instance in a photobook or financial report everything must be in the correct order. By printing a barcode on the trimmed area and scanning it when collated integrity is assured.”
Finishing is no longer the Cinderella of the print industry. Printers are finding that by giving careful consideration to the bindery they are able to increase efficiencies, reduce personal injuries, create added value opportunities, and ultimately add to the bottom line.
