Switzerland's Market Leader in Printing for the Healthcare Sector Chooses the Presto II Digital
From the beginning of next year, Paul Büetiger AG in Biberist (Switzerland) will produce its offset and digitally printed insert booklets for the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors and commercial products using a Presto II Digital Saddle Stitcher from Muller Martini. In the future, the company will be able to cut out a production step, produce more efficiently and reduce delivery times, especially in the short-run segment.
As Switzerland's market leader in the printing of healthcare inserts and the company with the second largest market share in the pharmaceutical printing field in Switzerland, Paul Büetiger AG specializes in the production of booklets in (ultra) small sizes and (ultra) small runs. The annual production of 200 to 300 million copies is subject to the strict norms of total quality management (TQM), which according to company owner and managing director Paul Büetiger means zero error tolerance both in printing and print finishing. "We can't even afford an error rate of 0.01 per thousand in the healthcare and pharmaceutical areas because of potential legal consequences."
For Offset and Digital Printing
That is one of the reasons why the successful businessman opted for the new Presto II Digital saddle stitcher from Muller Martini – the barcode scanner with an automatic signature image recognition Asir scanning head provides maximum reliability. Another reason was that until now Paul Büetiger AG produced its small booklets with up to 120 pages (products with a higher number of pages are perfect bound) using a 1509 saddle stitcher from Muller Martini, extended with cameras, and a punching machine, likewise extended by the company. "In the future we'll be able to produce everything inline using one machine, which means we can cut out a step, produce more quickly and further reduce our delivery times," says Büetiger. In addition, the printing plant will benefit from more efficient cutting of ultra small sizes, having worked closely with Muller Martini on enhancing the cutting process.
Paul Büetiger AG, which uses equipment including a Concepta web printing press from Muller Martini, will produce both offset and digitally printed products using the new saddle stitcher. A digital sheet-fed press from Canon/Océ is mainly used for printing short runs from 50 to a maximum of 1,000 copies. These short runs have gained in significance, in the sense of print on demand, "because our customers want to keep their stock levels as low as possible," explains Büetiger. In addition to healthcare and pharmaceutical booklets, the company, which was established in 1926 and employs 65 people, also prints traditional commercial products – "albeit on a smaller scale," as Büetiger explains – which will also be wire-stitched using the new Presto II Digital.
The new Presto II Digital will be commissioned with three twinfeeders, a cover folder feeder and belt delivery in Biberist at the beginning of December. Paul Büetiger plans for it to be running at full capacity by February.
Great Size Flexibility
At Paul Büetiger AG the paper is conveyed from the digital sheet-fed press via a single-sheet flat pile feeder from MBO to a pocket fold unit, likewise from MBO. There it is cross folded once or several times, and then scored in the processing folder and given a length fold. The barcode scanner with the automatic signature image recognition Asir scanning head ensures that the products are tipped onto the saddle stitcher chain with the correct make up.
The solution with the pocket fold unit – small sheet sizes with four-page signatures can also be moved directly from the flat pile feeder to the processing folder – allows greater flexibility with regard to both signatures (4/8/12 pages) and sizes. It also enables higher production speeds. The Presto II Digital produces at a maximum of 9,000 cycles per hour and processes up to 30,000 incoming signatures.
Digital-Ready Means High Degree of Investment Protection
"With its modular design, the Presto II Digital is the perfect hybrid solution for conventional offset printing and digital printing," says Adrian Mayr, Saddle Stitching Systems Product Manager at Muller Martini. "That makes it the ideal saddle stitcher for graphic arts companies that plan to enter digital printing in the near future or are already printing digitally."
Companies currently still printing exclusively using the offset method can retrofit their existing saddle stitchers at any time in the future to include the digital option and use them either for digital sheet-fed printing (along the lines of the Büetiger solution using a flat pile feeder, pocket fold unit and processing folder), for digital web printing (using an unwinding system, cross cutting and processing folder) or even for combined sheet-fed/web printing applications. "That's why the modular saddle stitchers from Muller Martini provide customers with a particularly high degree of investment protection," says Mayr.
