Oxford-based KMS Litho is now able to finish short run perfect bound hard and soft back books in-house, following the installation of a Fastbind Pureva XT perfect binder and a CaseMatic H46Pro casemaker from Ashgate Automation.
The company, which has experienced growing demand for short-run books, is also planning to offer a fast turnaround service to local printers.
‘Outsourcing very short runs can be prohibitively expensive,’ said Mark Willis, owner. ‘I looked at several systems but I couldn’t see a return on spending £20-£30,000 on bigger, more automated equipment with the amount of jobs we have, particularly as I was still planning to outsource longer runs. Our market is primarily to bring litho and digitally printed books and brochures up to 500 copies in-house,’ he explained.
The Fastbind equipment is ‘easy to operate and does exactly what we want to build up this side of our business at a sensible price point’, reported Mr Willis.
‘The table-top Pureva with its interchangeable EVA and PUR glue cartridges is simplicity itself to operate,’ he continued. ‘It is useful to have the facility to do PUR binding but we will probably continue to do a lot of the work using EVA glue. EVA binding has come a long way from the time when the pages fell out. It’s clean and low cost,’ he added.
‘We’ve only had the equipment for four weeks but our next step is to use the table-top Casematic casemaker, which works in conjunction with Pureva to produce hard back books,’ said Mr Willis. ‘We are certain that it is going to be a useful tool for us. The combination gives us far more options on the finishing side and the opportunity to be competitive in this marketplace.’
