Muller Martini Group Founder and Pioneer, Hans Müller, Dies at Age 96

Many Muller Martini machines still bear the hallmark of company founder Hans Müller, a trailblazer who set several crucial milestones for the industrial production of print products. Five years after the first pad stitching machine, he constructed the first perfect binder, followed by the first saddle stitcher with automatic signature feeders, coupled with a three-knife trimmer in 1954. While the competition at that time could stitch at most 1,000 copies per hour, the new fully automated machine quadrupled that rate and even offered improved quality thanks to Hans Müller’s technical expertise. In 1956, he astounded the graphic arts industry with “flying stitching heads”, which for the first time stitched without stop and go, enabling a further significant increase in production speed.