The End of Big Iron in the Bindery?

I spent a large part of my career in high-volume commercial binderies within firms such as RR Donnelley, Quad/Graphics, World Color, Banta, Brown Printing, and the like. These were truly “big iron” operations where perfect binders and saddlestitchers might stretch over a hundred feet of floor space and easily weigh more than 100,000 pounds. Such machines might take more than a day to makeready, and once started for a particular magazine or catalog job, at times might run for more than a week straight.