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| Your Commitments.
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| In This Issue |
| News from Binding Industries of
America |
| Recap of industry
meeting |
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I recently attended a two day conference in Chicago
of the Binding Industries of America, which actually was
the first meeting of our group in several years.
With most trade associations experiencing tough
times, and the BIA was one of them, a concerted
effort to reinvigorate the group led to a terrific
turnout. Perhaps in these difficult times we
need to lean on each other a little bit
more.
Here are some of the highlights as
they relate to you, our clients and
partners:
Sincerely,
Frank
Shear
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SUSTAINABILITY IN THE
BINDERY
We all know how important
it is to make the world a better place to live and
reduce the harm our businesses do to the world around
us. Since we binders consume relatively
fewer resources than printers we are late to the "green"
movement. However, we do use electricity, glue,
film, plastic and metal binding elements and do generate
our share of waste. As one would expect, paper
waste is our major waste product.
Nearly
every printer and binder recycles paper waste, and as
recycled paper has grown in demand it has become a major
source of revenue. Most binderies have automatic
waste paper collection devices that simplify the
chore. The key to maximizing that value is
to keep each grade of paper as separate as possible,
keeping glued paper separate and to compact the waste as
much as possible, preferably through a
baler.
One aspect of glue that I have
written about before is that PUR glues are more easily
separated from the paper than plastic hot melt glues.
This means that the papers going back into the system
are purer. Now, PUR glue costs a bit more to bind
than traditional plastic based hot melt glues, but you
may win over your clients who are more environmentally
aware because of the recyclability
factor.
We are looking at economical ways
to recycle and/or reuse plastic wrap and other
items. We are open to ideas from
anyone.
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| AUTOMATION
IN BINDERY
Mr. Carrington Herbert, sales manager at
Muller Martini Corporation, discussed machinery trends
in the bindery. Nearly all of his discussion centered on
the transformation into automation.
High
end machines are becoming fully automated, with servo
drives allowing for faster makereadies and the ability
to produce more jobs in a day. Run speed is less
of a factor than makeready time with the trend toward
shorter print runs. Automation is working its way
down to lower end machinery, even into hand fed
equipment. We are the proud recipients of a
new Pantera perfect binder, with makereadies twice as
fast as the machine it replaced.
Automation
also serves to give you reproducible settings for jobs
that come back periodically. On-the-fly
adjustments can be made while the machines are
running. Signature recognition detection, which
has been in place for some time, has worked its way down
to medium speed binding lines. Incomplete book
reject gates are built into the gathering section which
will allow the binding line to keep running if a
signature misfeeds.
The ultimate in
productivity goes to the equipment that can bind one
book at a time (called one-offs) so that books can be
bound on an individualized basis, each book with a
different thickness, and the binder will self adjust to
binding one unique book at a
time.
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TIME
MANAGEMENT
Most of us try
to run as lean as possible, both in the plant and in the
office. It is easy to become overwhelmed by
competing objectives.
Jones Loflin,
Author of Juggling Elephants, gave us a few key tips on
how to avoid burnout, using the metaphor of a
circus:
1) The
result of trying to juggle elephants is that no one,
including you, is thrilled with your
performance
2) The ringmaster
cannot be in all three rings at
once
3) The key to the
success of the circus is having quality acts in all
three rings
4) There is no
shortage of acts for the
circus.
5) The relationship
between the ringmaster and the performers affects the
quality of the circus.
6)
Intermission is an essential part of creating a better
circus performance
7) Your
circus is only as good as your next
performance.
Needless to say, the presenter
was a bit of a circus act himself. But he was good
at what he did and certainly got his points
across!
For more information about this
book, go to www.jugglingelephants.com.
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SPOTLIGHT ON FULFILLMENT:
KITTING AND ASSEMBLY
If
you are squeezed for space or personnel and don't have
room to do fulfillment for your customers, we can
help! We have on-staff and on-call hand workers
skilled in assembling kits and preparing
shipments. Even if we don't produce the material,
we can still help with your kitting and packaging.
Next door to us is a convenient and highly skilled mail
house who we can coordinate with.
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