“The Morgana system is so user friendly. This system allows us to provide improved job turnaround times. Our team like the ease of use of the BM5050. Its menu driven via the user touch screen, and it presents the operator with straightforward logical choices when setting up the job.”

Rick adds: “With typical production runs of about 2,000 copies, the BM5050 just whizzes through the work, meaning that our turnaround times for jobs have been reduced. Our finishing department is just delighted with the binder.”

The Result

The new system at Wilson Press was installed and ready for action from early 2023. With regard to the arrival of the new booklet maker, Rick Ricci said: “We have been familiar with Morgana equipment for some time, so when we were looking to an offline booklet making machine, they were an obvious place for us to look.

Work produced at Wilson Press on the new booklet maker can now include the square-back finish – when a wire-stitched booklet can take on the appearance of a perfect bound product.

Typical throughput at Wilson Press is focused on a core business of designing, printing, and mailing.

Operators can now also compensate for the skew caused when feeding long sheets with a simple adjustment in the user interface, on the fly. Wilson Press can now produce SquareFold booklets in sizes from 4.1 x 5.8” to Letter-sized Landscape, or in the larger Letter-square-format (297 x 297mm).

Apprintable grows again with Morgana booklet maker

“We had been outsourcing an ever-increasing amount of binding work. When we examined the numbers in detail, and the amount of margin that we were giving away, it was clear that we should now be producing this work in-house with our own equipment,” said Peter Haddad, Managing Director of Apprintable.

“The new booklet maker is very robust – and it just eats up the work, faster than we can print it sometimes. There’s no doubt that it could keep up with two print engines working full-time – but that’s for the future. The fact that we can use the two bins on the feeder to produce the jobs at high speed – one bin for the heavier weight, laminated cover perhaps, and the second bin for the inner pages – is just great for now. It really does produce booklets quickly and efficiently,” he adds. Currently the company has one full time engine, a Xerox Versant 280, with its predecessor, a Ricoh Pro C5300s, still retained as a back-up for those really busy days.

Booklets produced with recycled paper is a niche where Apprintable is winning work at the moment. Customers are keen to find a supplier that can produce print using recycled stock, and there appears to be only a small number of online producers out there that are able to offer a solution at a reasonable price, said Peter Haddad.

The purchase of a new guillotine has also helped speed up production on the shop floor. “Our previous guillotine was fairly basic – yes, it cut paper, but the new EBA ideal 56 can store a multitude of different cut combinations. It can then guide the operator through each stage of the process – telling them when to turn the paper, and when to cut. It really does speed up the whole process, and it is usable by any of our team. You don’t need to be a guillotine expert anymore.”

Going back to the BM4050 binder, Peter added: “I particularly like the fact that the machine is so easy to set up – that’s important when you have inexperienced operators using it. The SquareBack finish is a great enhancement for us to speak to people about – it’s not something that we were ever offered when we were outsourcing, so it’s a new feature for our customers. The “perfect bound” appearance is something to promote to graphic designers, in that the spine that can now be printed on for the larger pagination booklets.”

When talking of jobs processed to date, one larger, same-day job came to mind: “1,600 books, 28-pages, printing and binding. We imaged a portion of the text pages so that we could get the binding started, whilst then running the rest of the job on the print engine. It all worked well, and we got the job out on time.” A fine example of where outsourcing the binding just wouldn’t have worked.

About Apprintable

From humble beginnings, Apprintable was built from the ground up. With the goal to improve the quality of the print industry, whilst maintaining a low, fair price. Based in West London, Apprintable presents the premier online printing platform for obtaining personal, promotional, commercial, and informational print products at the lowest prices.

The business has grown quickly, and moved to larger premises in September, 2022. It is now housed in a 3,000sq.ft. leased site in an industrial part of Wembley. “We’ve invested over a quarter-of-a-million pounds in the past two-and-a-half years into our own production equipment, despite the circumstances of the pandemic and recent toughening of market conditions,” added Peter.

If the Apprintable name seems familiar, that could be down to its frequent appearance courtesy of Google ads! A piece of promotional activity that Peter Haddap says is paying for itself time and time again. Whether it’s a small, one-off order, or a company that returns time and again for quantities of the wide range of promotional items, and regular print that Apprintable can produce, it’s been a worthwhile investment. The company holds a good SEO position for a number of its leading products.

See Apprintable online https://www.apprintable.com for a full selection of available product.

“I particularly like the fact that the machine is so easy to set up – that’s important when you have inexperienced operators using it. The SquareBack finish is a great enhancement for us to speak to people about – it’s not something that we were ever offered when we were outsourcing, so it’s a new feature for our customers. The “perfect bound” appearance is something to promote to graphic designers, in that the spine that can now be printed on for the larger pagination booklets.”

Morgana Systems BM4000

The Morgana Systems BM4000 series of booklet makers produce consistently high-quality booklets in a wide range of sizes and media types. The basic configuration, with hand feed capability, enables users to make booklets in an offline mode, meaning that one binder can service multiple print engines.

BM4050 can produce corner stapled documents in portrait A4, as well as edge stapled documents in portrait, plus the popular landscape A4, with up to 200-page booklet capacity. The unit can also support long sheets of up to 660mm, without the Creasing and Side slitting module (CST) or 620mm with CST.

The unit’s heavy duty staple mechanism has been designed for durability, and is maintenance free thanks to a patented solution that eliminates periodic service intervals. Users are able to adjust both the staple and fold positions though the easy initial set-up. The BM4000 series machines have a patented “set positioning mechanism” that allows the operator to adjust the staple position and the direction of travel from the intuitive user interface.

Operators can now also compensate for the skew caused when feeding long sheets with a simple adjustment in the user interface, on the fly. Apprintable can now produce SquareFold booklets in sizes from A6 to A4 Landscape, or in the larger A4-square-format 297 x 297mm.

Sodexo Enterprises, Versailles, France, has added a Plockmatic BLM5050 booklet maker to its large print production installation. The new booklet maker links inline to one of the operations Canon imagePRESS C10010VP print engines.

“The new finishing unit is a great time saver. It means an overall increase in production, which gives my staff additional time to complete other tasks on the job. We are particularly impressed with the ability to finish A4 landscape publications – we couldn’t do that before.”

Speaking particularly about the latest Plockmatic addition, responsible for the production, Cyril Pioli, said: “The BLM5050 is very user friendly – and that’s one of the reasons why we chose this model. The display panel on the unit tells you exactly what to do, step by step, so it’s easy for an inexperienced operator to learn. We also have the Plockmatic BLM50 from some time ago, so we know that Plockmatic solutions are both reliable and robust.”

Laurent Barbut adds: “The new Plockmatic unit has already saved us a lot of production time and money because we can do all of the job production in-house – there’s no need to outsource anything, which is something that always comes at a higher cost.”

Overall, Cyril Pioli said: “Plockmatic deliver a reliable product, with a strong construction, that is easy to use – an ideal solution to work in tandem with our Canon printers. Whilst I do really love our French car industry, Plockmatic equipment is like comparing a Citroen to a Mercedes! It’s built so much better than other products, and it just works.”

“Because we had used a Plockmatic unit before, and we were extremely satisfied with that, we had no hesitation in returning to them again, and this time, of course, we had added extra functionality being able to produce A4 landscape books.”

With reference to future investments Pioli said: “We are always looking for new solutions to invest in – solutions that can make our business better in terms of quality or in our working environment. Special requests from our customers may require a further equipment investment, but for now we are good!”

Plockmatic BLM5000

A new kind of booklet making system that combines robust and reliable performance with a new range of applications, including landscape format. Add the Plockmatic signature square fold finish to A4 landscape format documents for the appearance of a perfect bound book. BLM5000 is available in both staple and stitch versions.

The BLM5000 series is compatible with Canon imagePRESS V1350, imagePRESS V1000 and the imagePRESS V900 series.

The staple version can handle sheets from 206 x 210mm up to 320 x 620mm, in weights from 65 to 350gsm (dependant on paper type). The maximum book thickness is 10mm (approx. 200 pages of 80gsm). The unit contains two low impact staple heads with moving clinchers.

The stitch version can handle sheets from 120 x 210mm up to 320 x 620mm, in weights from 65 to 350gsm (dependant on paper type). With RTC minimum sheet size is 148.5 x 210mm. The maximum book thickness is 10mm, dependant on paper size (approx. 200 pages of 80gsm). The unit includes two ISP stitch heads.

Sodexo Enterprises

The company was founded in 1963. The in-house operation in Versailles, which incorporates the company’s Central Reprographics Department (CRD), came into being in 1990.

Sodexo Enterprises are one of the forty largest companies in France. They produce a wide range of products, mostly focused on food and facilities management. In the in-house print unit Sodexo produce a large variety of print on their Canon print engines that needs to be finished. Many of the print products are output from the Canon devices in booklet form, from 5 to 50 sheets in A4 format (both portrait and landscape), with most requiring a short print run – from just a couple of copies, up to 30. Approximately 80% of the work produced is for their own internal business use, with 20% of work for other companies within the Sodexo Group.

“We found our previous unit, from another supplier, a bit of a challenge at times. The Morgana unit, in comparison, was so user friendly. The job set-up is very straightforward – you just select the size, number of pages, the desired format, the run length, and then you are all set to go. The finer detail can also be tweaked, such as the position of the folds, and the staples.

“With typical production runs of about 2,000 copies, the BM4050 just whizzes through the work, meaning that our turnaround times for jobs have been reduced. Our finishing department is just delighted with the binder.”

Work produced at WhiteOak Printing on the new booklet maker can now include the square-back finish – when a wire-stitched booklet can take on the appearance of a perfect bound product.

Typical throughput at WhiteOak includes graduation commencement programs, school sporting event programs, concert programs, manuals for construction equipment, church bulletins, and many other general commercial publications.

Morgana Systems BM4000

The Morgana Systems BM4000 series of booklet makers produce consistently high-quality booklets in a wide range of sizes and media types. The basic configuration, with hand feed capability, enables users to make booklets in an offline mode, meaning that one binder can service multiple print engines.

BM4050 can produce corner stapled documents in portrait Letter format, as well as edge stapled documents in portrait, plus the popular landscape Letter, with up to 200-page booklet capacity. The unit can also support long sheets of up to 26-inches (660mm), without the Creasing and Side slitting module (CST) or 24.5-inches (620mm) with CST.

The unit’s heavy duty staple mechanism has been designed for durability, and is maintenance free thanks to a patented solution that eliminates periodic service intervals. Users are able to adjust both the staple and fold positions through the easy initial set-up. The BM4000 series machines have a patented “set positioning mechanism” that allows the operator to adjust the staple position and direction of travel via the intuitive user interface.

Operators can now also compensate for the skew caused when feeding long sheets with a simple adjustment in the user interface, on the fly. WhiteOak can now produce SquareFold booklets in sizes from 4.1 x 5.8-inches to Letter-sized Landscape, or the Letter-square and even the largest 11.96″ x 11.96″ format.

About WhiteOak Printing

Established in 1984 this locally owned business began life in Marietta, Pennsylvania. In 1987 the business moved to downtown Lancaster, and then in the next decade, 1995 to be exact, the company moved into its present day 18,000 square-foot building in Dillerville Road, Lancaster. In 2001 the company installed its first digital colour press – an Indigo UltraStream. In 2004 the business created its own online ordering system. By 2012 the business was ready for growth, and it acquired the promotional products company, GPI Marketing, and the growth continued the following year when it acquired another promotional company, Creative Promotions Plus. Print growth continued, and in 2021the latest and greatest piece of equipment, an HP Indigo 12000 was installed.

Commenting on this sector of the market, John Brailsford, company owner, said:

“We had looked at a variety of potential solutions, but nothing was quite suited to our needs. Either they were too expensive, were overly complex, or they still needed dies to be produced. The previous Intec machine, the SC5000 was close, but not quite large enough to handle the range of stock that we needed to process. We thought we were just going to have to stick to outsourcing any work that required die-cutting.”

“We could see that digital die-cutting was definitely the way to go – then we had a call from Ray Hillhouse of Morgana, who said to me, “I’ve got just the machine for you!” We have a long history of working both with Ray and with Morgana. He knows us well, and he knew exactly what we needed – and the SC6000 was introduced to us.”

Morgana says that particular attention has been paid to the feeding system to ensure class-leading performance for card, vinyl labels, or even tricky laminated sheets. The SC6000’s auto feeder accepts up to 900 sheets, raising or lowering as required. To prevent sheets curl, a constant air flow to the sides of the stack is used. The SC6000 uses an automatic air blade that fires a blast of air momentarily into the front of the stack, just as the advanced vacuum feed belt lowers to collect the top sheet using pneumatic suction. To further provide a reliable feed, the vacuum feed belt lifts the media, carrying any sheets not pre-separated by the air blade past a pair of dexterous separation fingers to dislodge them. Finally, before advancing the sheet into the cutting engine, the vacuum feed belt jogs briefly against the rear paper stop, creating a natural curve that helps ensure even difficult media can be fed faultlessly.

SC6000 will cut and crease virtually any shape on up to 350-micron media, including kiss-cut sheet labels. A QR code, via the job library, retrieves the associated cut files, even for a mixed batch of jobs in the same run. The Morgana ColorCut SC6000 is perfect for digitally die-cutting packaging and point-of-sale items, as well as lightweight card projects, and labels. The expanded size of the unit will be of great appeal to those producing larger format work, such as display signage.

About John Brailsford Printers

It was 37 years ago that John Brailsford, 16 years old at the time, produced his first print job. The local commercial printers could not compete with the super quick turnaround, the great choice, and value for money that John Brailsford Printers provided and even today the company is proud to say that it still leads the way in offering customers, sharp, crisp quick printing, and digital imaging, with a professional unbeatable, super friendly customer service that has to be the best value in Yorkshire.

More than just a regular quick printer, the company has 12 experienced and qualified employees, coupled with the very best mix of the latest litho and digital equipment. The business runs two Presstek offset litho machines as well as Xerox digital printing equipment, from its print centre in Rotherham.

For more information visit the BrailsfordPrinters.com web site.