At the Hunkeler Innovationdays in Lucerne, Muller Martini had two reasons to celebrate. On the one hand, we registered a big crowd of visitors at our stand over all four days. On the other hand, some customers decided to purchase our solutions for finishing digitally printed products presented at the trade fair.
100 percent digital printing, 100 percent products ordered online and on demand, 75 percent in runs of 1 – if you take a look at the order books of Schätzl Druck & Medien GmbH & Co. KG, from Donauwörth, Germany, you will quickly see that highly automated production processes are required in order to be successful in the book-of-one-market. This is exactly the kind of graphics company that Muller Martini's developers had in mind when they expanded the "unbeatable duo" of perfect binder Vareo and three-knife trimmer InfiniTrim by adding an endsheet feeder to create an "indomitable trio" for the industrial processing of hardcover book blocks in runs of one and of the highest quality.
From Finishing 4.0 to Schätzl 4.0
Currently, Schätzl Druck & Medien GmbH uses several, less automated systems for the processing of ultra-short runs. "However, because our main focus is on full automation and we need scalable and automatable capacities due to the seasonal fluctuations in our operations – think Christmas business – we looked for a new solution," says Ulrich Schätzl. According to the Managing Director, the endsheet feeder/Vareo/InfiniTrim solution, which proved to be a crowd-puller at the Muller Martini stand at the Hunkeler Innovationdays in Lucerne, is "exactly what we need. It’s a hybrid system for softcover and hardcover, ensures automatic signature infeed, provides high size variability, and reduces manual interventions – just as described by Muller Martini in its Finishing 4.0 strategy."
After the pilot customers, Schätzl GmbH is therefore the first printing house worldwide to invest in our new hardcover book block solution. The system will be supplemented by a Diamant MC Digital bookline from Muller Martini and a DA 270 casemaker from Kolbus. The plant, which will come onstream in summer, will be controlled by our workflow system Connex. "For me, Connex is even more important than the individual machines," says Ulrich Schätzl, "because it forms the basis for our indispensable, networked production. Connex provides excellent support for our Schätzl 4.0 strategy." The fact that the purchase agreement between Schätzl Druck & Medien GmbH and Muller Martini was signed at our stand during the Hunkeler Innovationdays was a special highlight for me."