Tony Walsh (left), owner, machine operator Arik Surzyn, Right, Michael Murphy, director of the Irish Muller Martini agency Central Press Services Ltd.
Walsh Colour Print in Castleisland, Co. Kerry, Ireland is one of the first graphic arts companies worldwide to commission the new Alegro perfect binder from Muller Martini.
The installation means the family business is now equipped for the finishing of offset and digitally printed products. The Alegro perfect binder was unveiled in May at the Muller Martini stand at drupa. Tony Walsh, co-founder of Walsh Colour Print, decided to invest in the machine for, ‘short setup times and high quality of end products’.
High quality is of particular importance to the company as the business entered the Irish school textbook market three years ago with the label www.educate.ie.
Mr Walsh entered the school textbook market with three aims: to produce high quality school textbooks at prices parents can afford; to help teachers meet the challenges of today’s classrooms; and to create jobs in Ireland.
The company has sold 250,000 school textbooks published in house last year, with the number set to rise to half a million this year. ‘We’re more than satisfied with that progress,’ said Mr Walsh, who has contracted 25 authors and 10 sales representatives, to convince schools of the high quality of their products in terms of both content and print finishing.
The company produces the majority of jobs for other publishers and performs print finishing for other printing houses across Ireland, typically in A4, A5 and B5 formats. ‘We’ve observed that print runs have fallen significantly in some cases,’ said Mr Walsh. It also entered the digital printing business four years ago and currently operates two HP Indigo 5500 machines. Since then the family business has regularly delivered books with a print run of just one copy.
This therefore required a solution for the finishing of sheet-fed offset and digitally printed products as a successor to its ageing Monostar perfect binder from Muller Martini. ‘We also need a high performance system because we often print several tens of thousands of copies per title in offset printing. The Alegro meets all our requirements for both long runs and short runs,’ said Mr Walsh.
In addition, an after-sales service is also provided through the local agency Central Press Services; this is also for the Monostar and the printing house’s three saddle stitchers from the manufacturer, two Primas, one 335.
Just four months after signing the purchase contract at Muller Martini’s drupa stand, the company began production with the new Alegro, featuring an 18 station gathering machine, PUR binding, splitting saw for two up production, a Merit three knife trimmer, a CB 18 book stacker and a film wrapping unit. The three machine operators familiarised themselves with the new system during the first two weeks of production with help from Muller Martini technicians.
Thanks to on-the-job training, the operators got to know the new Alegro perfect binder under production conditions and quickly got the hang of it. Click on the picture to see a demonstration
