Finishing & Screen Printing

DAZ Gains Digital Ready Saddle Stitcher

Monday 25. March 2013 - New Presto II at Druckerei Albisrieden Zürich

This spring, Druckerei Albisrieden Zürich (DAZ) will install a new Presto II from Muller Martini to replace a saddle stitcher 221, which was built in 1978 and continues to run flawlessly until today. This innovation will increase flexibility as well as the quality of the print products thanks to the tWinScore scoring wheel on the cover folder feeder.
“The saddle stitcher 221 still runs impressively, but extensive reconditioning of the machine would not have made sense economically,” says Wendelin Lipp, Owner and Managing Director of DAZ along with Caroline Hüsler and Reto Hauri. His enthusiasm is clear when he talks about the saddle stitcher 221 from Muller Martini. Installed in 1997 as a second-hand machine with six feeders and 19 years of service under its belt, it has been high on the list at DAZ in terms of return on investment. “We’ve made good money with this saddle stitcher,” says Lipp.
tWinScore for Optimal Scoring Quality
The company, which was founded in 1947 and covers the entire printing spectrum with prepress, four printing presses (three web offset printing presses and one HP Indigo Digital printing press) and print finishing, will part with its “old timer” with a heavy heart this spring. Apart from its age there are two important technical reasons for the switch. First, the saddle stitcher 221, which was regularly maintained over the years, does not have a cover folder feeder. Second, the folding of the signatures that was necessary as a result was unable to fully satisfy increasing demands of scoring quality. That is a particular challenge for DAZ, because A4 and A5 brochures in the high-quality segment for SMEs, financial service providers and agencies are a key focus of its production, which otherwise covers the entire printing portfolio.
For that reason the saddle stitcher 221 will make room for a new Presto II from Muller Martini this spring. In addition to tree twin feeders and a hand station, the new Presto II features a cover folder feeder with an integrated tWinScore, making it the ideal tool for the maximum scoring quality. Its design features a scoring wheel with a groove forming a W shape, so that covers receive two scores extremely close to each other. Even when processing a wide range of cover types and grammages, the paper fibers are barely damaged, and it also keeps the fibers from tearing.
Digital Ready – Well-Equipped for the Future
According to Lipp, the Presto II also brings another advantage, which spoke in favor of investing in a brand-new machine despite a good offer for a second-hand Presto: “We have also been printing digitally in the “high-end” sector for almost ten years, so it naturally makes sense for our new print finishing systems to be digital ready.” Since DAZ, with its 30 employees, has many print runs for brochures in the small to medium-sized range, the Managing Director also expects the new saddle stitcher to increase changeover times significantly: “Our flexibility will certainly increase, and we will be able to produce faster and more efficiently – and not only because offline scoring of the covers will no longer be necessary.”
Lipp is convinced that the golden age of the graphic arts industry is over, never to return. “However the new conditions also offer good opportunities if you stay attune to customers’ needs and make the right investments.” Despite extensive optimization of the means of production, it is clear to Lipp, who holds a degree in economics and has been with DAZ since 1996, “that we primarily have to control our internal workflows in order for our production to be profitable.”