This year three Finnish printing houses in Helsinki, Oulu and Rovaniemi merged to form a new company called Erweko employing a staff of 130. It is now one of the largest sheet-fed offset printing houses in Finland. At the same time, an entirely new production facility was built in Oulu on a greenfield site. Erweko is installing two offset and digital printing presses there. “That means that we have a sufficiently large volume of jobs to be able to invest in a modern perfect binding line,” says CEO Mikko Ilomäki.

Mikko Ilomäki (left), CEO of Erweko: “We wanted a system allowing us to finish offset and digitally printed products.” Center: Seppo Ursin (Product Manager of Muller Martini Finland). Right: Michael Thüler (member of Muller Martini’s corporate management).

Based on the positive experiences of the three predecessor companies in the field of saddle stitching, Erweko decided on a solution from Muller Martini and signed a purchase agreement at the drupa in Düsseldorf for a Pantera for PUR and hotmelt production with a 12-station gathering machine, an Esprit three-knife trimmer and a Uno compensating stacker. “We specifically wanted a system allowing us to finish offset and digitally printed products,” says Ilomäki.

The new Pantera, which will be put into operation this summer, will be used to bind mostly magazines and sales catalogs. The upper limit of the print runs is around 40,000 copies, but Erweko also has numerous jobs from 500 copies. “That means that we have to change over the line frequently,” says Ilomäki. “The high degree of automation of the Pantera with Amrys and the Book Data Center is naturally very attractive in that respect.”

The compact layout of the Muller Martini solution also spoke in its favor, since space in the new factory for the perfect binding line is limited. In addition, the Pantera is also fully remote-compatible, which means Muller Martini can get in contact with the machine at the customers’ site online from the factory at any time and quickly resolve faults through the ^MMRemote service module.