Embracing Bindery Automation—It’s Time to Take the Leap
If the bindery is the final frontier of total workflow automation, and the technology has been in existence for over a decade, why are so many companies still passing on the opportunity to gain efficiency and save money? Trish will explore the challenges.
The bindery is the final frontier of total workflow automation, but the journey can be overwhelming. Unlike other steps in the print workflow, finishing is the most diverse. After the paper is printed, it can be die cut, coated, bound, folded, stamped, collated, inserted, jogged, guillotine trimmed, and more. And, although most newer finishing equipment (purchased within the last 10–15 years or so) can send and receive JDF data, the likelihood that they’re actually networked together on the shop floor is pretty slim.
In fact, even the most ambitious plans to automate can be sidelined once you get your arms around the project scope, thinking about all of the touch points, all of the equipment brands that must talk to each other, and all of the people who would have to be willing to learn how to do their jobs in a totally new way. “Our biggest competitor is the traditional, static way of doing things,” says Julie Watson, president of Ultimate TechnoGraphics. “It can be very hard to break people of their old habits. However, finishing automation can make their job so much easier and help them produce more jobs.” Julie’s company is behind Ultimate Bindery software, a powerful open software solution that manages multi-vendor finishing workflows with ease.
This sentiment is something that everyone from the software companies to the finishing equipment manufacturers are dealing with. Often the solution becomes more of a crawl, walk, run scenario. “There is a learning curve, but we have seen customers being more proactive and asking questions as they consider enhancing the automation of their workflows,” says Yashi Potdar, Workflow Solutions Analyst for Standard Finishing Systems. “Many shops are not quite ready to fully implement bindery automation, but we can offer them a way to grow into automation, from memory recall and job storage all the way up to full JDF workflow.”
The manufacturers have been prepared to support automated bindery workflows for over a decade, and the industry has been able to hold off on taking the leap—however, that time appears to have just about passed. “The market is changing,” says Fadan Qawas of HP. “We’re seeing the move toward non-standard jobs, personalization, and customization. The technology to automate these processes and make them faster and more efficient exists—people just haven’t adopted it yet. The rest of the print workflow is digital, and manual operations in the bindery are a slow and costly bottleneck, which hurts the customer’s ability to meet the demands of today’s jobs.”
The Value of Automated Finishing
If you’re thinking of making a move, you might be wondering where you’ll see the greatest benefit. According to Potdar, “In terms of maximum benefits, finishing equipment that features automatic job changeover equipment using dynamic barcodes (for instance, to adjust for variable size/thickness books) is a real game-changer. This capability reduces make-ready time and eliminates manual touch points, potentially saving on labor and costly errors.” She adds, “You really see the benefits with more complicated equipment and applications, where more finishing steps and more frequent changes are required. An automated folder is a great example. Manual folders can take hours to set up, and an automated folder can perform that setup in one minute or less.”
Qawas also weighs in on this topic, looking at the big picture. “The value proposition on bindery automation, as we see it, is in two pillars,” she says. “One pillar is profitability. Automation means short make-readies, quick turnaround times, and maximizing capacity—which also means keeping most of the finishing work in-house. Profitability goes up dramatically. The second pillar is efficiency. If you can eliminate human error and save on overs that would have been used for testing and cutting, the overall impact is substantial.”
Taking the Steps to Automation
The first step in bindery automation is determining if you have JDF-compatible devices. If you don’t currently have them, in many cases your machinery isn’t useless. Your vendors can usually recommend an upgrade, or possibly even a retrofit. For example, Colter & Peterson performs retrofitting upgrades on guillotine cutting systems.
The next step is to think about software as the underlying connection between the systems. Ultimate Bindery is a finishing automation software designed to bridge the workflow gap between prepress and finishing. Since a lot can change during production, it adds to the MIS data, the prepress features and completes with an accurate finishing plan to remove the manual make-ready on finishing equipment. This will increase accuracy as the job travels through the workflow. Ultimate Bindery builds a dynamic JDF file from the most final version of the job data before it goes to press—essentially working as an agent between prepress and finishing, validating and communicating to the different machines. It is also designed to pull all of the highly detailed finishing data, which is more than a traditional MIS or workflow solution alone can provide. It essentially completes the workflow and enables the finishing touch.
This software can be available in your workflow, as Ultimate Bindery is integrated under the following systems:
Ultimate Bindery also supports over 32 finishing devices by the likes of Horizon, Polar-Mohr, Duplo, C.P. Bourg, Tecnau, Microcut, Plockmatic, Schneider Senator, Watkiss, and Perfecta. If you’re unsure of which machines can be networked/integrated, you may be able to reach out to the manufacturers for help. For example, HP customers can look to the HP Partners Program for assistance with integration issues.
The software development push is also happening at the manufacturer level. “One important innovation we’ve developed is the extendable Hunkeler Workflow Manager (HWM),” says Potdar. “It’s a modular platform for workflow management, job setup, production statistics, data interfacing, and service tools. HWM is a big step in the advancement of automation, with fully automated registering, and plug-ins for job edition and production setup for cut/stack line and dynamic perforation, eliminating much of the manual setup of the line.”
The Future of Bindery Automation
The manufacturers and software developers continue to stay ahead of the industry demand, because they have to. Yashi Potdar sums it up best: “We expect printers to eventually demand not just fully automated post-press setups, but also real-time production statistics on work-in-progress, predictive maintenance, and more, all flowing backing into their MIS system to inform their decision making. This is the type of control and efficient reporting that providers already demand from their pressroom; and we expect these same requests to extend to the bindery.”
In response to this prediction, Hunkeler has developed their Site Manager to collect error data and status from tracking controllers on Hunkeler finishing devices and provide production reporting and piece level tracking. It can also integrate with the Hunkeler Web Inspection system, which captures high-resolution images of printed output for various types of quality and integrity analysis at speeds up to the full speed of the press.
Along the lines of advanced quality control features in the bindery, and also indicative of manufacturers staying ahead of the curve, recently I was at Impress Communications to speak with Paul Marino about the benefits of their “Picture-Perfect” Bobst ACCUCHECK System.
Learn About Bindery Automation at PRINT 18
If you’re looking to learn more on this topic, I’m giving a show floor tour at PRINT 18 called Automated Solutions for Today’s Finishing, and it’s free. We’re going to stop at 6 different show floor locations to explore bindery automation across several categories. Ultimate TechnoGraphics and Standard Finishing Systems are two of our stops on the tour, so you’ll have the chance to see these technologies (and many others) in a learning environment. I hope you’ll join me.
