Bookmasters Installs Muller Martini’s Scalable SigmaLine to Produce Short-Run Books

HAUPPAUGE, NY—August 1, 2012—For the past 40 years, family-owned Bookmasters has provided publishers and authors with a highly inclusive yet customizable menu of integrated services. In addition to offset and digital manufacturing, the company’s suite of capabilities includes design, editorial, composition, order fulfillment and distribution. It is headquartered in Ashland, OH, with offices in New York City and London.

Bookmasters produces all varieties—and quantities—of books, from black-and-white to full color, offset and digital printed, and all bind styles. Recently, it installed Muller Martini’s Scalable SigmaLine digital book production system. This technology’s ultra-short-run manufacturing capabilities allows the company to seamlessly produce variable-sized perfect bound books in-line with its new Océ JetStream 1000 inkjet press.

When explaining why the company selected Muller Martini’s products, Sevin added, “We have always had good experience with previous Muller equipment and its advanced innovation, like the Diamant casing-in line which was installed over five years ago. Moreover, the quality of the service and support after the sale has been outstanding.”

The fully automatic setup of the entire system begins with the laser measuring station that determines the incoming untrimmed book block dimensions for setting up the SigmaBinder. When installed in-line, this infeed station makes it possible to also hand-feed book blocks into the machine if, for example, the upstream printer is not functioning. This enables the Scalable SigmaLine technology to have both the flexibility of a near-line configuration and the efficiency of an in-line workflow in the same system.

Bookmasters’ Scalable SigmaLine system is controlled via a barcode intelligence technology that guarantees book block to cover match in the SigmaBinder and automatically relays the final trim sizes to the SigmaTrimmer for book-to-book changeover on the fly. The SigmaTrimmer has three independently driven knife elements that automatically trim books of varying sizes and thickness without any makeready, i.e., there is no changing of pressing pads or cassettes.

The system has virtually eliminated inefficiencies once inherent to digital book production. It significantly streamlines the production of one-off and short-run books, creating much greater productivity in the line and allowing the production of 1,000 fully variable length, width, and thickness books per hour.

Ray Sevin, Bookmasters’ president of Manufacturing Services, noted, “With our in-line Scalable SigmaLine system, we are able to proficiently produce short-run digital books without the inefficiencies typically found when handling product in an off-line workflow. And, with the book integrity checks included in the system, our new touchless workflow is virtually worry-free.”

About Bookmasters
Based in Ashland, OH, Bookmasters is one of the largest integrated providers of editorial and design, eBook conversion, printing print book and eBook distribution, and marketing services for publishers and authors. The organization has remained a publishing industry leader for more than 40 years.

About Muller Martini
Muller Martini is the world’s largest producer of print finishing solutions for commercial and book printers, trade binderies, newspapers, and digital book manufacturers. They are also the world’s leading manufacturer of variable size web offset presses. Muller’s innovative workflow solutions optimize processing efficiencies, while helping to build new revenue streams. With U.S. headquarters in Hauppauge, NY, Muller’s sales and support team provides training and responsive service to printers and binderies nationwide.

Source: Muller Martini.