“Game Changers 2011 is certainly setting a milestone in terms of the planning and development of a completely new publishing program,” Webcom president and CEO Mike Collinge told his Open House guests. “It is enabling our customers to make savings throughout the entire supply chain – to an extent that has never been seen before in our industry.”

Webcom president and CEO Mike Collinge (middle), Bernhard Schmid (right), member of the board of Muller Martini, and Gary Hughes, president of Muller Martini Canada, in front of the new Bolero at Webcom in Toronto.

Webcom contributes to efficient production processes using the two new HP digital printing presses T300 (for text) and Indigo 7000 (for covers) as well as the two new perfect binder lines that have been put into operation this year – the Acoro A5 (with a 12-station gathering machine, PUR, Merit S three-knife trimmer and Uno counter stacker) and the Bolero B9 (with a 24-station gathering machine, stream feeder, PUR/VPN nozzle, Orbit three-knife trimmer, CB-18 counter stacker and Pluton palettizer). “The new production systems and the subsequent BookFWD publishing plan are changing the face of our company and they reduce the cost for our customers”, says Cris Vortisch, Webcom’s Director of Sales.

Lower Production Costs and Higher Binding Quality
According to Mike Collinge, there were two main factors that tipped the balance in favor of investing in the two Muller Martini systems, that binds sheets from three digital and five web offset presses: “The quicker job changeover times and the high level of process automation with the Connex workflow system lead to considerably lower production costs. In addition to this, thanks to PUR we have a substantially higher binding quality.”

Gary Hughes, Managing Director of Muller Martini Canada, demonstrated the advantages of the first Boleros in Canada to the interested visitors at the Open House event. The new perfect binder line is integrated into the MMServices module MMRemote. This enables efficient and fast online management of troubleshooting and contributes greatly to the reduction in downtime costs.

Webcom, with its 225 employees, produces some 30 million books a year. Of these 30 million books, two thirds go to the Canadian market and the remaining third are distributed in America. The company made a name for itself in 1988, 13 years since it was founded, when it became the first North American bookbindery to introduce the Otabind binding method. Until nowadays Otabind, famous for its lay-flat technology, is an important part of Webcom’s product spectrum. “With the BookFWD program,” says Mike Collinge, “we are now making another great step into the future.”