Finishing 4.0 Stands For a Digitally Connected Future

With the buzz word of Finishing 4.0, Muller Martini will showcase solutions at its (digitally) connected drupa booth that enable the industrial and cost-effective production of customized print products. The systems presented enable a touchless workflow by preparing themselves fully automatically for each new product based on digital job data and handling production without the need for manual interventions.

With an impressive performance highlighting the key topic of Finishing 4.0, Muller Martini will demonstrate live every day at its drupa booth how variable, customized magazines and books can be produced using an automated machine line-up – nine connected production lines in the saddle stitching, perfect binding, hardcover production and newspaper inserting segments will be used for the production of hundreds of copies of over 20 different (hybrid) print products. Visitors to the booth will see the specific advantages of Finishing 4.0: production systems that are capable of preparing themselves fully automatically for each new product based on digital job data and producing using a touchless workflow, with the absolute minimum of manual interventions.

The touchless production of complex products at the Muller Martini booth will include a personalized educational book – a job with fully variable content that will be produced using three different systems, from the roll to the finished book.

  • Personalized book blocks, each with a completely different page count, size, book thickness and content, will be produced in sequence in runs of one copy using the SigmaLine digital book production system, which now also allows for VDP production thanks to three new modules of the Connex process and data management system. Muller Martini, which is leading the way in technology for automated production workflows, will underline the fact that the “PDF in, book out” slogan can now also mean “PDF/VT (VT: Variable Transactional) in, personalized book out”.
  • Eight of those book titles will then be perfect bound in sequence using the Vareo – it is the first perfect binder at which all three clamps have their own servo motor and are individually driven, representing a technological revolution.
  • Finally, the three-sided trimming of books that vary from product to product will be performed using the InfiniTrim, which is premiering at drupa, with its revolutionary drive, transport and trim concept.

InfiniTrim with Unit Drive Technology for All Grippers and Knives

Since conventional three-knife trimmers have a cutting table and pressing pad, which have to be manually changed in the case of size changeovers, Muller Martini has developed a Finishing 4.0 solution for three-knife trimming in runs of one copy that saves an incredible amount of time. The new InfiniTrim impresses not only with its unit drive technology for all grippers and knives, but also ensures the ideal pressing and correct positioning of every single product.

With the InfiniTrim, which comes into its own as the perfect inline companion to the new Vareo perfect binder for the production of individual softcover and liner brochures, the material to be trimmed is first fed horizontally, and the dimensions for the head trim and the finished trimmed size are registered via barcode. The subsequent infeed wheel positions the book vertically. It is then conveyed by a servo-driven gripper from that position to the first trim zone for the head trim. The desired stopping point corresponds exactly to the position of the trimming line. Straight after the head trim, the book is conveyed using servo-driven transfer units to the specified position for the front trim and then to the foot trim zone. Following the foot trim, the book is transferred to the delivery belt, without the machine operator having to intervene a single time during the entire process.

Muller Martini will also be represented at the drupa booths of two digital printing press manufacturers. Two Presto II Digital saddle stitchers, each with an unwinding system, cross cutting unit (from Hunkeler) and pocket fold unit (from Heidelberg), will be used at the booths of the Muller Martini partners Canon Océ and Xerox to finish several of their digitally printed trade fair products live.

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