How Many Binders Do We Need?

Soft-cover book production has undergone radical change in the last 10 years. From relatively long runs, we are now in a complete "on demand" model where sophisticated sales data is fed back to the printer to ensure that inventories are kept at a minimum. So instead of setting up a perfect binder for a nice long book run at a decent speed, today's operator is faced with a dizzying array of jobs, from one book to five thousand. They will run 20 books, followed by 10, followed by 50, and son on. Trim sizes may vary considerably, and it's not always possible to gang similar trim sizes together to minimize format changes.