WhatTheyThink - Printing Industry News, Commentary & Analysis

August 16, 2006

I am not a CEO like Mr. Ryan or a doctor like Mr Bohan. I am a bindery guy with high school education that spent many years in bindery floor production and bindery equipment sales. My experience allowed me to be involved with beta installations of automatic perfect binders, hard cover equipment, and JDF saddle stitchers.

It disturbs me to read Mr. Ryan blends in one sentence “promise”, “JDF”, and “more profitability”.

PIA/GATF promoting 75% faster makeready on saddle stitchers should come from field data comprised of all automatic stitchers sold and in use. I realize things are improving, and in controlled GATF environment and selected stitcher Manufacturer demo spots this can happen. There is a reason why print shows are called shows!

In the real world printers and trade bindery stitching margins have continued to decrease. In some areas of the country with the stitcher netting its full rated speed and no makeready time, the fixed cost cannot be met to be competitive domestically or abroad.

There is a reason all of the big league print consolidators have only purchased a JDF machine here and there and not across 50 or more plants to reap the rewards. It is my belief that the conglomerates wish to keep an eye on this bindery technology while promoting their cutting edge marketing spin.

A greater number of typical binderies can benefit from the “old school” machine maintenance (which they can often perform without OEM prevailing rates and travel expenses), operator training, and proper production scheduling then huge CAP expenditures.

I believe in PIA/GATF and feel CIP4 has brought many benefits upstream from bindery that are very slowly trickling down to real world results in select finishing markets. Your bindery ship won’t sail if you do not spend a $1,000,000 today or at Graph Expo. Watching many buyers finally discover after making their big “automatic bindery” investment what their true limitations were, I started my own company more then a year ago so we can help each other.

Regards,

Brad Emerson
fixyourownbindery.com

Responding to: http://members.whattheythink.com/news/newslink.cfm?id=23949

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