Technical Articles

Trouble Shooting And Problem Solving - Part One: Adhesive Binding

Published in New England Printer & Publisher

by Frank Shear

Graphic arts professionals should do more than simply produce jobs on time at an acceptable quality level. All of us need to function as the "eyes and ears" for our customers while their jobs are guests in our plant. It's not a question of "if" problems will occur; rather it's what we should do "when" they happen.

When things go wrong, the worst thing to say to people is "take it or leave it." Those of us experienced in the graphic arts industry know that this is an open invitation to permanently drive away customers.

What business are we in? Printing? Binding? Prepress? Or, are we really problem solvers? Those of us who don't get it run a serious risk of being perceived as nothing more than providers of commodity-like services. No matter the origin or the depth of the problems facing us, there are almost always alternatives, as long as everyone works together to find them and avoids finger pointing.

The first step toward being the eyes and ears for your customers is to make sure you have implemented a comprehensive and timely preflight system. At my company, Seaboard Bindery, our system catches a lot of problems before we burn up even one cent of our customers' money. As we prepare for bindery jobs, we make pre-production samples from actual materials and look for imposition errors, obvious printing problems or missing components. When something is wrong, we quickly search for reasonable alternatives and contact our customer. Many problems can be overcome by making minor adjustments to either the manufacturing process or the final product. Even if there's a major problem, there still are usually more options than just reprinting and missing delivery dates.

Let's get down to specifics. Today, we're going to look at some situations that have happened at our company - all within the past month of this writing. Please keep in mind that we're neither complaining about the quality of these customers' work, nor implying that we're the answer to the world's bindery problems. Rather, we're just trying to show representative examples of what issues happen, how they should be detected and what kinds of alternative solutions may exist. We live in a detail-oriented industry and the difference between making money and losing it is good planning, communication, problem solving ... and offering choices.

Tales From The Crypt - Perfect Binding

Example 1: We received a rush perfect binding job with web-folded and perforated signatures. (Perforations are necessary to release trapped air during the perfect binding clamping process.) However, the perfs were too long and didn't have enough paper fiber holding them together to withstand the suction feeding process. Although we were concerned about the perf depth, we weren't certain they'd fall apart. After a discussion with our customer, we put the job on the binder to see if it would run. We soon discovered that the pocket feeding suckers indeed did rip apart a lot of the signatures when the machine cycled at a normal production speed. However, when we significantly slowed down the machine, it ran much better. After presenting the two most likely alternatives, 1) excessive spoilage of 25% or more, or 2) a missed delivery date, our customer chose the latter.

Example 2: A year ago, we purchased a Muller Martini Amigo binding system to enter the short run segment of the perfect binding market. Since then, we've converted a lot of DocuTech work and now know that toner, unlike ink, lays on top of paper instead of penetrating into it. Since DocuTech products frequently have bars and other graphic images recurring in the same place on every page, the resulting toner buildup creates uneven bumps, which makes the clamping process difficult. Now, we ask about repeating graphic elements during the quoting stage of most DocuTech perfect binding inquiries. If they're there, and unavoidable, we recommend that we be supplied with extra materials to accommodate anticipated higher spoilage rates.

Example 3: Earlier this week, we received a perfect bound book project from a long-term customer that would have been easy to produce, except for one thing; the full-bleed cover didn't have any bleed-off margin. Within minutes, we notified our customer and learned that there wasn't enough time for a reprint. They calmly asked us to undersize it as little as possible on the head, face and foot and not to trim off any body copy. With these instructions in mind, we set up the perfect binder to knick off an extra 1/16" in all directions and slowed down the running speed so we could inspect a larger percentage of the job as it ran. We did not trim off any text. Our customer understood that we did as good a job possible, given the circumstances.

Layflat Adhesive Binding - Otabind / RepKover

Last month, we received a 20,000-piece layflat adhesive bound job, preflighted it and noticed a design problem. Our customer had specified the Otabind method, which depends on a "crash" paper liner that adheres the cover to the first and last text pages of a book block. This particular job had copy positioned too closely to the spine on page one. Had we proceeded as instructed, the text on the first page would have been partially covered up by the Otabind crash sheet. Another layflat binding process, RepKover, would prevent the problem, but also increase costs since it's more appropriate for shorter run lengths. Our customer's choice was this: Either change the layout of the first signature and reprint it; or switch the binding method to RepKover. They switched.

PUR Adhesive Binding

Two weeks ago, we received a job that was to be first perfect bound and then cased into a hard cover. Upon receipt, we noticed that the text had a heavy matte coating and quickly recommended using a stronger adhesive - PUR (polyurethane reactive) glue. However, our customer wanted us to attempt perfect binding and we reluctantly gave it a try. After setting the job up and running off a few books, we stopped the machine and tested page pull strength. We got consistent readings of less than two pounds per linear inch, which is well below industry standards for perfect binding and certainly not acceptable for a high-priced cased-in adhesive binding job. At this point, our customer OK'd the switch to PUR glue, we ran the job and everyone was delighted that it tested above four pounds per linear inch.

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Customer service excellence in the graphic arts industry is a never-ending process. We all would serve our customers better if we functioned as their eyes and ears while their jobs are in our plant. This sounds simple, but the best things usually are. Look for this same column in December's New England Printer & Publisher for Part II, which will discuss trouble shooting in other areas of the bindery.

Frank Shear is President of Seaboard Bindery, a service-oriented trade bindery located in Woburn, Massachusetts. His company specializes in offering high quality perfect binding, PUR and layflat adhesive binding, saddle stitching, Wire-O, plastic spiral, and other bindery solutions. Call Frank at (781) 932-3908 or e-mail him at frank@seaboardbindery.com.