Standard FinishLine Fall 2018 test

Fall 2018

STANDARD FINISHING SYSTEMS

Showtime Update

Customer Profile

Customer Profile Foxy Propaganda increases their bookletmaking capacity with the Standard Horizon StitchLiner Mark lll

Large turnout at PRINT 18 sparks enthusiasm while print industry gears up for Innovationdays 2019

Alexander’s Print Advantage expands book-of-one business with the Standard Horizon BQ-480 Perfect Binder

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Welcome I Contents

Customer Snapshot

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Advanced Automation

Operators at Foxy Propaganda can achieve fast setup and changeover using the system’s two intuitive touchscreens. The team especially likes the Mark III’s job memory feature, where settings for repeat jobs can be recalled automatically from the touchscreen by job name.

Welcome

Contents

Foxy Propaganda Increases Productivity, Reduces Waste with Standard Horizon StitchLiner Mark III. Kennedale, TX printer specializes in catalogs, price sheets, mini-booklets, and calendars

Andover Demo Center Sees Increased Traffic and Activity.

Customer Snapshot

This year marks an all-time high for visitor traffic to Standard’s National Demonstration and Training Center. Our goal is to make it convenient and worthwhile to see Standard Horizon and Hunkeler solutions in action and we are staying true to that commitment. After reconfiguring our space to accommodate even more equipment, we are now able to host several personal or group demonstrations at one time. Whether it is to evaluate new equipment, participate in training, or gain new ideas for your print finishing workflow, the doors to our Andover, MA location are always open. The recent PRINT show in Chicago allowed us to personally catch up with hundreds of our customers in just three days. Those who attended will agree it was time well spent for the industry. This is where so many of our customer relationships get started, followed up with a more in-depth trip to our demonstration center. The customers featured in this issue have all been our guests in Andover, and each is experiencing significant productivity gains from the Standard equipment installed after that visit.

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Foxy Propaganda gains efficiency with the Standard Horizon StitchLiner Mark lll

Customer Feature

4-5 Hunkeler/Horizon lines paired with inkjet drive significant growth at Direct Mail Solutions

Eliminating bottleneck to achieve a 45% to 50% increase in throughput.

Showtime Wrap-up

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PRINT 18 in Chicago draws high attendee turnout and interest in automated solutions

Almost 50 years ago, Tom Fowler founded The Fowler Group, a design and branding agency located in Kennedale, TX, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. “When we saw digital printing coming to market,” says his son Pat Fowler, who now runs the company, “we knew it would be the perfect addition to our service offering. My dad was never interested in ‘Big Iron,’ but the idea of producing high-quality short-run printing to enable a full end-to-end offering, from concept and design through production, was quite attractive.” Foxy Propaganda, the company’s printing arm, was opened in 2006 and employs 18 people. The company recently added a Konica Minolta AccurioJet KM-1 production inkjet printer with a 23" x 29" sheet size to its existing Xerox iGen150 toner-based digital press. “With the massively increased through- put of the AccurioJet,” Fowler adds, “our existing bookletmaker was going to be a huge bottleneck for us.” Fowler first saw the Standard Horizon StitchLiner Mark III at PRINT 17 in Chicago and was impressed. “We talked about it with our dealer, Cobblestone Graphic Equipment Co., and we decided to visit the Standard demo center in Boston to make a final decision. It was an amazing experience. We were able to see everything in their portfolio, and the staff there was extremely knowledge- able.” Fowler chose to replace their existing bookletmaker with the new Standard Horizon StitchLiner Mark III Saddlestitcher and has had remarkable results ever since.

Foxy Propaganda primarily produces catalogs, price sheets, and mini-booklets. The company also has a calendar business, CustomBuiltCalendars.com. “The combination of the StitchLiner Mark III and the AccurioJet has really revolutionized our business,” Fowler reports. “We used to print every- thing one-up, which resulted in a great deal of waste. Now we can print 2-up 11" x 17" duplex pages with a bust cut with no waste. I also like the integrated in-line scoring and the fact that we can

Innovationdays 2019

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Hunkeler prepares for Innovationdays 2019 in Lucerne, Switzerland this February

Customer Snapshot

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Alexander’s Print Advantage turns to Standard to increase perfect binding capacity

Direct Mail Solutions out of Richmond, VA, reports such a dramatic increase in monthly mail volume with their new Hunkeler/Horizon systems that they will be adding more lines to their portfolio this fall. In Lindon, UT, Alexander’s Print Advantage is growing their on-demand book business by leaps and bounds with the

Michael Kolb, Supervisor (left) and Jason Thomas, Bindery Manager (right) stand beside their new Standard Horizon StitchLiner Mark lll.

help of the new Standard Horizon BQ-480 Perfect Binder. And when Foxy Propaganda in Kennedale, TX saw a bottleneck in its bookletmaking area, they found new efficiencies with the Standard Horizon StitchLiner Mark III Saddlestitcher that took their business to the next level. Thank you to our customers and partners, who choose to work with Standard so we can help move the industry forward together. We are honored to share your stories within the pages of our FinishLine.

we are able to acheive an actual production of 3,500 books per hour with the StitchLiner Mark III.” Fowler also likes the Mark III’s job memory. “If we have repeat jobs, we simply give it a code and store the setup in memory. When we are ready to run the job again, we just pull up the settings and we are ready to go. Plus, this equipment is extremely reliable – it really is ‘set it and forget it.’” This new configuration has enabled the company to bring in even more work. “We’re getting ready to add a second shift,” Fowler says, “and we are really excited about that. We’ll have two 8-hour shifts, eliminating the stress of 10-hour days to rush things out the door, and we’ll still have room to grow.”

hook up three collating towers.” The larger sheet size for both printing and finishing also meant that the company was able to bring in a significant amount of outsourced work, particularly in oversized calendar production. The new combination has also resulted in a 45% to 50% increase in throughput in the shop. “With our old system, we often had our staff working 10-hour days to get the work out,” Fowler says. “It used to take as much as 45 minutes to set up the bookletmaker, and we needed a significant number of makeready copies to get everything adjusted – often as many as 150. Now setup is 15 minutes or less, and on a standard job, we can get by with as few as 15 to 20 makeready copies because the equipment is so precise. That’s a huge savings in time and waste. Now

On the Cover Direct Mail Solutions, Richmond, VA

Publisher: Standard Finishing Systems 10 Connector Road, Andover, MA 01810 Tel. 978-470-1920 (Left to Right) Allen Walden, Plant Manager Donny Birkelund, Bindery Production Manager Randy Toney, Operations Manager Ed Martin, Bindery Mechanic Antonio Kocev, Bindery Assistant Manager

Doug Reny Vice President of Operations

David Reny Executive Vice President

Steven Reny President

Follow Us Online! www.standardfinishing.com/follo wus

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Customer Profile I

Roll-to-Fold solutions deliver faster turnaround

Bindery Operators Wanda Morman (left) and Maria McCain (right) work with the Hunkeler/Horizon Roll-to-Cut/Fold lines at Direct Mail Solutions. The new solutions together process a remarkable 45 million mail pieces per month.

Direct Mail Solutions has two off-line Roll-to-Cut/Fold lines with Horizon folders. One line has the Hunkeler CS6-I Cutter, which is ideal for standard cut-and-fold jobs. The other features a CS6-II Cutter for more complex jobs where gutter and chip-out are needed. Both of these new lines are delivering quality products and beating previous turnarounds.

Direct Mail Solutions Nearly Doubles Throughput. New lines key to 15 million pieces per month production growth

Discovering the production advantages of Hunkeler and Horizon in-line solutions.

Direct Mail Solutions, located in Richmond, VA, was founded in a garage 20 years ago. This 24/7 operation employs nearly 400 people and has both a production facility and a presort shop where mail produced in-house is commingled with third-party mail and prepared in accordance with USPS requirements. As the business has grown, Direct Mail Solutions is in the process of migrating from roll-fed toner-based printing to roll- fed production inkjet, according to Randy Toney, Operations Manager, who has been with the company for 18 years. “We had eight toner lines,” he says, “and now we are down to four, having added two Screen Truepress Jet520EX inkjet presses in 2017.” Toney states that the primary drivers for moving to production inkjet were to increase cost savings and reduce the amount of floor space required for production. Each Screen Truepress line features Standard Hunkeler unwinders and rewinders. “We were interested in looking at Hunkeler because we knew they were one of the leaders in the industry,” Toney explains. “We had seen their products at many shows, and finally made the leap when we acquired the Screen presses. We were running out of floor space, and it didn’t make sense to add more toner devices with the inkjet technology now available.” In making the decision, the team at Direct Mail Solutions visited Standard’s showroom in the Boston area. “This visit was a great help in the decision-making site with them and had their undivided attention for the entire time we were there, enabling us to have an in-depth first-hand look at everything they had to offer. Many vendors miss that aspect during the sales process. It made us feel comfortable with the investment that they were able to spend that amount of time and explain exactly what we were getting.” In addition to the unwinders/rewinders for their Screen Truepress lines, Direct Mail Solutions has two off-line Roll-to- Cut/Fold lines with Horizon folders. “One line has the Hunkeler CS6-I Cutter,” Toney states. “This is ideal for standard cut-and- process,” Toney says. “I have never been exposed to any other vendors that handle the sales process the way Standard does. We were on-

The high-speed Hunkeler unwinders and rewinders provide constant web tension for uniformly tight and straight rolls to ensure efficient, productive downstream processing on the Hunkeler Roll-to-Cut/Fold systems.

slit/merge operation now, but our speed is at about 8,000 mail pieces per hour. With this third line, we will be able to bump that up to about 27,000 per hour, more than tripling throughput. This will add a lot more variety and speed to the services we can offer our customers.” In addition to the pre-sales visit to Standard’s National Demonstration and Training Center, Direct Mail Solutions sent Toney and two other employees back to the showroom for a week of training. “We learned everything we needed to know to operate and maintain the systems,” he says. “And we can do most, if not all, of that maintenance ourselves.” Toney is extremely pleased with the results the company has achieved with its new equipment. “Uptime has been about 95% or higher,” he says, “which is outstanding. Any downtime we have experienced has typically been a result of something we were doing wrong, not the equipment, and the support from Standard has been exceptional in helping us work through those few issues.”

fold jobs. The other line features the CS6-II Cutter for more complex jobs. For example, we run a 2-up 14-inch letter for a customer that also contains a gutter and a chip-out. This is a The team at Direct Mail Solutions plans to add two more Screen Truepress lines with Hunkeler Roll-to-Roll systems and another off-line cut-and-fold unit. The new installations will more than triple throughput.

“Now that volume is in excess of 45 million,” he reports. “We gained 15 million pieces in capacity, and that is gigantic. With the addition of the two new printers and the additional finishing equipment, we expect to be able to add another 10 to 15 million on top of that.” By migrating from toner to inkjet and adding Hunkeler/Horizon finishing, Direct Mail Solutions is positioning itself for continued growth and the ability to create even more types of applications for its customers. “Our goal was to increase throughput while reducing both space requirements and labor while still producing a great quality product for our customers. By partnering with Standard, we have exceeded our expecta- tions with regard to both of these objectives. We’re getting more work out faster, more cost-effectively, and with less labor. Once we have our new lines in place, the picture will be even better. Our future is bright, and our partnership with Standard is a key factor in our success.” Rolls are printed on the Truepress Jet520EX in-line with the Hunkeler Roll-to-Roll solution and then seamlessly transferred to the off-line Roll-to-Cut/Fold system. Pictured above, Sly Castillo, Laser Operator, loads a pre-printed roll for final finishing.

monthly job with more than 10 million pieces and a 10-day turnaround time. With this new equipment, we are able to beat that 10-day turnaround time, which we have never been able to do in the past.”

We have exceeded our expectations. We’re getting more work out faster, more cost-effectively, and with less labor.

Prior to putting in the new lines, the company was producing in the neighborhood of 28 to 32 million mail pieces per month, according to Toney.

But the company is not stopping there. “Both to replace the remainder of our toner devices and to accommodate growth,” Toney says, “we will be adding two more Screen Truepress lines in the fall with Hunkeler unwinder/rewinder systems, and another off-line cut-and-fold unit. This one will have the CS6-II as well as a web merge line that will allow us to do slit/merge,

wrap/fold, and a number of other complex applications. We have a

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Innovationdays 2019 I Workflow Webinar

Showtime

How to Automate Your Finishing Workflow Webinar available now for download!

Standard Hosts an Evening at Buddy Guy’s

Standard and Ultimate TechnoGraphics have partnered to present this online webinar. Learn about key components needed in your finishing workflow to automate, the key imposition requirements to optimize, JDF Workflow for auto-setup on Horizon devices, and more! Visit http://Library.imposition.com and click “Sign Up” at the bottom right of the page. The link to download will be emailed to you after creating an account.

During PRINT 18, Standard once again welcomed customers, partners, and dealers to Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago for dinner, live music, and dancing. An annual tradition, the event is a popular opportunity to enjoy great company, food and refreshment, and, of course, the Chicago blues!

Steven Reny welcomes the crowd.

.Standard guests enjoy the rhythm and blues.

After dinner, dancing and fun.

The 14th Hunkeler Innovationdays is fast approaching, taking place from February 25 to 28 in beautiful Lucerne, Switzerland. Industry leaders will convene at the Messe Luzern exhibition center, where best-in-class manufacturers from the world of printing will come together in two modern exhibition halls over four days to present the next generation of high-performance technology for digital printing and finishing. Once again, this exclusive showcase will feature several world premieres designed to move the industry forward. The event promises plenty of excitement, as Hunkeler will demonstrate sneak previews of their forthcoming machine generation, alongside a highly diverse portfolio of current solutions for book production, brochure and mailing production, transactional printing, newspaper printing, and more. Standard manufacturer Horizon will also have a large presence in the finishing arena in partnership with Hunkeler, showing end-to-end solutions from roll to finished product. Innovationdays will retain the traditional, unique character that attendees have come to enjoy. Set in a compact, easy- to-navigate venue, and serving as the platform for new ideas, genuine innovations, and lively discussions in a collegial atmosphere unlike any other, Innovationdays has become an essential event for production print professionals. To register or see more information, visit: www.innovationdays.com/en/ Hunkeler Innovationdays 2019! February 25-28, Lucerne, Switzerland

Finishing Takes Center Stage at PRINT. PRINT 18 in Chicago, September 30 - October 2, 2018

variable book production, where it reaches a maximum speed of 800 books per hour for book-of-one production, supporting book thicknesses from 0.04" (1 mm) to 2.56" (65 mm). The BQ-480 was shown alongside the HT-1000V Variable Three- knife Trimmer, which trims up to 1,000 books of variable thickness and format size per hour. At the center of the booth, Hunkeler's 2017 “MUST SEE ‘EMS” Award winning Generation 8 was presented in two unique solutions at PRINT 18. A Roll-to-Fold Solution, ideal for direct mail, featured the Horizon AFV-566F Folder, as well as the Hunkeler DP8 Dynamic Perforator, WM8 Web Merger, and CS8-II Chip-out Rotary Cutter. The second line was a com- bination solution showing Gen8 Roll-to-Stack in-line with the Horizon StitchLiner 6000 Saddlestitcher. Both configurations demonstrated the hallmarks of Gen8: greater automation, a wider range of formats and paper weights, and increased speeds (600 fpm) and web width (22.5"). PRINT 19 is scheduled to be held in Chicago from October 3-5, 2019.

Standard brings smarter workflow and new technology to a busy show.

From September 30th to October 2nd, nearly 17,000 print industry professionals converged on Chicago for PRINT 18. Now condensed into a tighter three day format, the show saw Standard’s booth bustling with visitors and conversation from start to finish, a reflection of a show-wide 38% increase of unique visitors per day. In its 50th year, the event clarified its focus to provide a snapshot of the

part of a special tour that included a stop at the Standard booth, Standard’s Director of Strategic Alliances Mark Hunt and WhatTheyThink’s Trish Witkowski collaborated to offer attendees an exclusive look at advances in finishing automation and how they can streamline bindery workflow. Welcoming visitors at the front corner of the booth was the StitchLiner Mark III, the latest introduction in Horizon’s acclaimed line of saddlestitchers and a 2018 “RED HOT Technology” selection. The Mark III features expanded booklet size and increased productivity up to 6,000 booklets per hour, and can produce a wider range of applications, including landscape-size booklets, 12" by 12" calendars, and pocket booklets as small as 4.5" by 3.5". Setup is fully automated, with no manual adjustments required for book thickness at the trimmer, resulting in higher quality booklets with greater efficiency, even for variable stitch length and variable page count booklets. A highlight in perfect binding, the Horizon BQ-480 sets new standards in automation and efficient, high quality production. The BQ-480 tops its class in several key areas, including setup and changeover for

present and a glimpse of the future of the ever-evolving landscape of print.

With an emphasis on real-world applications and smarter workflows, the Standard booth was packed with equipment featuring new technologies and enhanced automation. Show- goers were invited to explore a wide range of specially

IMAGE KEY (left to right) 1 Bob Flinn and Jay Darcy discuss benefits of the StitchLiner Mark III 2 Jack Mathews fine tunes the RD-4055 Die Cutter 3 Mark Hunt engages a special tour on the advances in finishing automation 4 A visitor takes interest in the Roll-to-Fold Direct Mail solution 5 Andy Fiore demonstrates the simplicity of touchcreen control 6 Rick Ciordia demonstrates ease of setup and changeover on the AFC-566FG Folder

7 Postcard application output from the Hunkeler Roll-to-Stack solution 8 Greg Nakanishi discusses the advantages of the BQ-270V Binder 9 Ron Walker addresses productivity benefits of Hunkeler Generation 8 10 Dennis Marking fields questions on the SmartSlitter sheet cutter and creaser 11 Yashi Potdar presents workflow and web inspection to show attendees 12 Standard’s booth was bustling with visitors and conversation from start to finish

designed workflows demonstrating format flexibility, short-run capability, and smooth setup and changeover _ all the tools print service providers need to adapt and prosper in a fast- changing industry. In addition, as

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Customer Snapshot I

Books on demand for a growing number of companies

In addition to the Ancestry.com work, Alexander’s also produces books on demand for companies such as Chatbooks, a Utah-based provider of photobooks. “We are their primary provider for soft cover books and their secondary provider for casebound books,” Mortimer notes. “These are mostly one-off photobooks that come in batches of thousands per day. There is no way we could keep up with the volume without our Standard Horizon perfect binders – and with two of them, we now even have capacity to spare.”

Standard Horizon BQ-480PUR

Alexander’s Print Advantage Turns to Standard for Bindery Solutions. Lindon, UT provider expands book-of-one business

A shift in focus to automated programs leads to growth rate of 30% to 40%.

Located in Lindon, UT, Alexander’s Print Advantage has been a staple of the Utah printing community since it was founded in 1979 by Jeff Alexander. Today, the company has more than 100 employees and is in the process of adding 28,000 square feet to its existing 42,000 square-foot facility. “Over the last several years, we have shifted our focus to automated programs,” Alexander explains. “We started doing this a number of years ago with Ancestry.com, where we were printing on-demand personalized histories for their customers, as well as posters and calendars as their exclusive printer for these applications. Ultimately, we bought that division from them and expanded these types of programmed services to other clients. That shift has been responsible for our 30% to 40% growth rate.” Alexander reports that about 70% of the company’s business is program printing, with the balance being general marketing printing. Alexander’s operates with two HP Indigo 12000’s and an HP Indigo 7900, as well as Canon Océ monochrome printers. About 50% of the company’s production is in books, including both soft cover and casebound. “As the business grew,” says Doyle Mortimer, the company’s Senior Vice President, “one area we knew we needed to address was the bindery. As part of our due diligence, we visited Standard’s headquarters in Boston and were quite impressed. We had a Horizon

added advantage,” he says, “was minimization of the risk of pages getting lost. It also allowed us to process books faster through the BQ-470PUR.” As the company’s business continued to grow, more perfect binding capacity was required. “There was no question in our mind that we would go back to Standard to fill this need,” Alexander says. “We added Standard’s newest Horizon system, the BQ-480PUR Perfect Binder, to the mix last summer, and also upgraded our

Pictured left to right are Charlie Alexander, Nick Alexander, and Jeff Alexander.

BQ-470PUR to the latest software version, improving productivity on that binder as well, including faster changeovers.” The BQ-480 offers advanced automation for setup and changeover of variable book production, where it reaches a maximum speed of 800 books per hour for book-of- one production. According to Alexander, as their book-of-one business continues to expand, the higher productivity of the BQ-480 in this range will pay big dividends. Alexander’s is pleased by the high level of reliability of Standard’s products and the level of support provided by both Standard and Veritiv. They anticipate future product enhancements from Standard will fit their evolving require- ments. In fact, the company plans to install the Standard Horizon SmartStacker next month to streamline the processing of B2 output from its HP Indigo 12000’s. As Alexander puts it, “We are a Standard Finishing shop. As we need more capacity, there is no question where we will source it!”

HT-70 Three-knife Trimmer in house, and a relationship with Veritiv Operating Company, Standard’s local Horizon dealer and also an important provider of paper to us. The opportunity to visit Standard headquarters and spend time actually working with the equipment was invaluable.” As a result of that visit, Alexander’s acquired a BQ-470PUR Perfect Binder and an AFC-566FG Folder. “The folder acquisition was a direct result of our visit to Boston,” Mortimer adds. “Because we were able to spend time with the equipment, it occurred to us that there were some major things we could do with the folder to streamline our operation, something we likely never would have thought of had we not had that opportunity.” According to Mortimer, certain books could be printed in signatures on the larger HP Indigo 12000 sheet size and signature folded faster than they could be cut into individual book blocks. “An

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