Muller Martini BravoPlus T saddle stitcher brings expanded sales opportunities and
faster job turnarounds to Daily Times-Call
The Daily Times-Call is a daily newspaper printing two daily papers totaling nearly 50,000 copies. The Daily Times-Call is part of Lehman Communications Corp., located in Longmont, Colorado, publishers of the Daily Times-Call, the Loveland Reporter-Herald, the Canon City Daily Record and weeklies in Lafayette, Erie, Louisville and Superior, Colorado. The company employs a total of 475 people and also handles a substantial amount of commercial print work including many magazines, along with college course books and municipal publications...each requiring stitching and trimming.  “In the next couple of years we would like to double our bindery output by selling more of these types of products,” says Dale L. Carr, Vice President of Production at the Daily Times-Call.  “We would also consider offering our services to other printers needing this type of bindery service.”

Instrumental in enabling the Daily Times-Call to expand its business opportunities in print finishing is the recent installation at the Longmont facility of a Muller Martini BravoPlus T saddle stitcher, which has been configured with 6 hoppers and a cover feeder.  Other advantages that the BravoPlus T has brought to the Daily Times-Call include enhancements in production speed, efficiency and productivity.  “Speeds have almost tripled on some products, make-readies are faster with far less tools required, and the trimmer is the frosting on the cake. It is so easy to make adjustments on the fly and the accuracy of trims is outstanding,” continues Mr. Carr.

Further benefits of the decision the Daily Times-Call made in choosing the BravoPlus T saddle stitcher include the robust engineering of the equipment itself as well as Muller Martini’s industry leadership and the extensive support that Muller delivers to its customers.  “We chose Muller Martini because of their reputation with bindery equipment, and, we were convinced that the BravoPlus T would do what we needed for years to come,” states Mr. Carr.  “Muller’s support, experience and installation have not let us down...the installation process was accelerated because of the workload put on our bindery department.  Installation began on June 25th (2007) and we were producing books by July 5th. I would like to commend our installer, Andre Von Arx, for doing such a fantastic job on the install. We certainly put the pressure on Muller Martini to get us up and running and they picked the right person to get the job done.”

The Muller Martini BravoPlus T saddle stitcher is capable of producing product at up to 11,000 c/hr.  It features PLC assisted controls and comfortable touchscreen operation with simple adjustment of clinchers.  BravoPlus T also comes equipped with a three-knife trimmer and due to its modular design, it can be expanded at any time to feed up to 14 signatures or 12 signatures with a cover folder feeder – meeting the requirements of growing printing and binding businesses.  Other key advantages include: touchless stitcher control from below; gripper and suction opening; individual 1:2/1:1 gearing; heavy-duty in-line single book trimmer; frequency controlled drive; and an easy-maintenance central lubrication system on the stitching machine and three-knife trimmer. Production quality on the BravoPlus T saddle stitcher is closely controlled through selectable options that include: ASIR (optical automatic signature image recognition), lateral thickness measurement by side caliper, oblique sheet monitor, thickness measurement by ridge caliper, stitch monitor, trim monitor, and sequential on/off.