Melbourne Print has installed a new DBM-150 bookletmaker and trimmer with a Duplo refurbished DSC-10/20 tower. The machine, which has replaced a manual saddle-stitcher, will help the Derby-based company reduce the time it spends manually stitching booklets.

Paul Wilson, managing director at Melbourne Print, explained the rationale behind the installation. ‘We’ve had a quieter 18 months than we would have liked but we’ve been able to adapt the business to offer more online services and by using various government schemes we were able to keep all of our staff.

‘We’re now looking forward to a busy next 12 months and so we thought automating our booklet production was key to being able to fit the extra work in. Mitch and Duplo’s technical team did a great job showing us the capabilities of the Duplo booklet maker range – since this was our first dip into bringing this type of work in-house, we needed to be extra sure. The DBM-150 is the right fit for the products that we needed to produce and also the budget we had available to spend.’

The DBM-150, which has already arrived in Melbourne’s 3000sqm factory, will sit alongside a Konica Minolta 6085 Accurio Production Press, Konica Minolta C759 and C554 digital presses, an Epson T5200D and a Canon IPF6400SE.

‘Within a few days of the installation we found that the new machine brought huge improvements in speed and quality moving from a manual hand fed machine with manual edge trim to the fully automated process,’ Mr Wilson concluded. ‘The fine adjustment on the crease and stitch makes getting the quality right quite simple. Our operators have quickly picked up most of the features of the DBM-150, however I do feel the controls could have been laid out in a more logical way, but I suppose that is were the benefits of having the PC control with the digital version come into play.

‘We have already moved a number of jobs from the manual saddle stitcher to the DBM-150 and have also started producing some jobs that would have historically gone to outsource – which is fantastic.’