SHORT-RUN BOOKS - Book of One

The ability to bind at 60 books per minute is not an extraordinary feat; binders have been capable of such speeds for several years—off-line, that is.

"Initially, in-line finishing equipment was added and put at the back of the [printing] machine," explains Bill Clockel, vice president and owner of Troy, NY-based Integrated Book Technology (IBT). "The problem was that the print engine wanted to produce a book every three minutes, but the binding equipment wanted to produce 60 or 70 per minute. So the in-line equipment was not productive. But the new digital binding equipment realizes that there are efficiencies in manufacturing multiple units off-line, instead of at the back of the press."