School Datebooks Increases Throughput by 30% with New Printing/Finishing Platform

When Jeff Bapst started at School Datebooks in 1995, it was a very different world. The company’s ability to introduce new products and services to its broad range of customers was limited by the economies of scale associated with offset printing.  Today, thanks to its partnership with Standard Finishing Systems (Booth 1923) and Canon Solutions America (Booth 613), School Datebooks is well positioned to gain market share, making all of its offerings available to customers regardless of run length.

School Datebooks (www.schooldatebooks.com) provides standard and customized datebooks for all levels of academia, from elementary school through colleges & universities. “We serve schools who require run lengths as long as 20,000 to as small as 100,” says Jeff Bapst, Vice President at School Datebooks. “With our new configuration, we are able to profitably produce datebooks in runs as small as one, and are introducing more color into the mix. This positions us well for both market differentiation and growth into the future.”

School Datebooks recently upgraded its digital printing platform to a Canon Océ ColorStream 3900 color production inkjet press with Standard’s Hunkeler Roll-to-Cut/Stack solution that delivers up to 1,100 straight and fully-separated book blocks per hour, for easy transfer to near-line finishing. “When we were looking at upgrading our press,” Bapst explains, “we also needed to upgrade our finishing in order to have an inline solution that could keep up with the speed of the press, even for our 5.5x8.5” books. Our Standard Hunkeler solution does just that.”

In fact, Bapst is pleased to report that production throughput has far surpassed the targets the company set in its ROI analysis. He explains that the estimate was for a 16% to 18% increase in impressions per day or per week, and the company is actually achieving a 30% increase over its former solution. “Part of the reason we were able to blow out our projects,” he adds, “is that we are able to group jobs by book size.  For example, we may run 8.5x11” books for two straight days, and then switch to 5.5x8.5” for another two days.  This means there is minimal downtime between these groups, a matter of minutes.”

Because the company runs limited formats, the job instructions are incorporated into a one-button setup on both the press and the finishing solution. “This also removes any opportunity for error and eliminates the need to do redundant setups. In addition, we had allocated time for preventative maintenance in our model, and we simply haven’t had to use that time. The press and finishing equipment are meant to run, and we try to keep them running as much as possible!”

Babst is also pleased with the way both suppliers involved in this solution—Standard Finishing and Canon Solutions America—work together. “If issues arise,” he says, “I don’t want to have finger-pointing going on.  We don’t have that issue at all.  From my perspective, I just want to print and produce datebooks, and have someone take care of any issues that arise. It’s a great relationship and we have been very happy.”