What Does a Bindery Guy Do When Facing a Tough Problem?
New folding machine add-on invented by Greg Gale of Progressive Folding & Binding of Cleveland, OH.
A good bindery guy never gives up...we’re always looking for a better way to do the 47 things that have to get done right now. Regular earthlings may not understand this, but if you can save a step here, a lift there, pick up 20 extra sheets here, it all adds up to significant boosts in productivity.
Bindery work is repetitive by nature; lots of things have to be done to lots of sheets, signatures, books, etc. throughout the course of a day. Let's illustrate:
Let’s say you’re running a 16pp signature, and normally you’d average 5,000/hour. This stock is particularly hard to fan out because it’s 100# text with an aqueous coating and you’re getting a double-sheet stop every 500 sheets.
Don’t think that’s a problem? Consider this. At that rate, the folder will stop 80 times during an 8 hour day and if the average stop time is only one minute...
- that’s 80 minutes of lost production per shift or 400 minutes/week (6.7 hours)
- that’s 6600 sheets less per shift (33,000 sheets per week)
- at an avg. hourly folding machine cost of about $74/hour for a 26” machine, it cost you $99 per shift, or $495 per week.
Plug in your own numbers, but you get the point. These “little things” are worth fixing.
Greg Gale of Progressive Folding & Binding in Cleveland, runs a trade bindery, and as a hands-on owner is especially keen on getting maximum productivity.
As new UV and aqueous coatings showed up in his shop over the years, he noticed how difficult they were to fan out on his continuous feed MBO in comparison to normal jobs. Of course you can manually air out each lift to help fan it, but it takes time, slows the machine down (or requires an extra operator) and is especially hard on the wrists--all you operators know what he’s talking about! And even with doing this, there was still a high incidence of misfeeds, jamming and double sheets stuck together. And there was a good chance of a carpal tunnel claim from anyone doing this for any length of time.
Greg visualized a device that would automatically inject a blast of air as the sheets were fanned, thus eliminating this tedious but necessary task.
So like any good bindery guy would do, with a little electrical design help, he built what he wanted!
And thus was born the Side Air Assist for MBO folders. Greg has been running his ingenious device for a few years at Progressive, and has sold a few to local colleagues. According to Greg, the patent-pending device can be installed on your MBO in about 15 minutes. It’s eliminated the problem he had with fanning sheets, reduced operator strain, and made his operation substantially more productive. Says Greg, “If the Side Air Assist was working so well for me, I felt that others would want it on their machines, too.”
The best way to understand how it works is to watch a video of it in action.
