It took a while to sink in but eventually I realized that one of the reasons I was hired for my first job in the bindery department of a commercial printing company is that there wasn’t exactly a waiting list of people willing to do the work. As interesting and varied as the work can be, there were times when it was monotonous, tiring and a little tedious.
Whenever I watch the countless moving parts on saddle stitching and perfect binding lines, I’m amazed that all those folded sheets of text and cover make it to the end without marks, scratches and scuffs. Well, most of the time they do.
Here’s a challenge. Check out this list of tips about caring for your guillotine cutter, and then guess when they were first published. I’ll reveal the date below but resist the temptation to cheat by scrolling down.
They laugh when we start cranking the handle on the new CreaseStream Mini scoring machine. It happens every time. “Hey, does that thing come with a monkey?!” is a favorite quip, usually heard in the first two minutes and then like clockwork throughout the show. At one recent in-plant printing conference an exhibitor could be seen jumping around like an organ grinder’s chimpanzee in mock imitation of us working the Mini creaser, his buddies laughing like hyenas.
I can hear the muttering…what can possibly be creative about working in the bindery? “After all, I run the same folding machine and same jobs over and over again, every day.” Or, “I manage 2 shifts with 50 people, a dozen machines, demanding customers and it’s the same stressful stuff every day.”
Whatever your circumstances, you know its time to step it up to the next level of productivity on this important piece of bindery equipment. These days you truly can’t afford to get less than maximum productivity from every single piece of equipment in your shop.
In working with thousands of bindery and printing businesses around the globe, we see many excellent bindery practices. We also witness far too many sloppy, unproductive habits that rob everyone involved of any chance at real success.
One critical trait that stands out in the good operators, as fast and productive as they might be, is they never stop trying to improve. It’s in this spirit of continuous education and improvement that we put an ebook together called How to Get the Most from Your Folding Machine Operators - 6 Nuts and Bolts Steps to Boost Productivity and Profits
“Everything customers tell me over the phone is a lie,” said my friend in regard to troubleshooting calls. He’s an electronics technician for a major print finishing equipment manufacturer and in the course of his job he fields help-desk calls.
In my bindery supervisor days I recall a few PIA salespeople (and I don’t mean Printing Industries of America) following client’s jobs through the print shop, snooping around in what seemed to be a random fashion. They might pick up a press sheet, glance at how a skid was wrapped, or pull a few folded brochures from a box. If they glared at me and walked back to the office with brochures in hand I knew something was wrong.
Trimming a folded piece two or more up is a great way to increase folding machine productivity. Yet the very act of trimming the pieces to their final size is a process that sometimes presents challenges.
If you've ever had to fold reply envelopes for inserting in a saddle stitched book, then you understand suffering. You’ve got it all working against you: