Book printer Gomer Press has installed a second sewing machine at its factory in Llandysul in West Wales to ease a production bottleneck.
“The amount of work that is casebound is growing do that 75% of our work is now case bound and 95% of that is sewn,” says managing director Jonathan Lewis. “This means that sewing has become a bit of a bottleneck and we were trying to get extra hours from the first sewing machine.”
The new machine is a Meccanotecnica Aster EL, the entry level version to support the existing Aster Pro. It has been supplied by Kolbus UK with whom Gomer has a long standing relationship, having supplied a perfect binder as well as case binding alongside the sewing capacity.
The additional capacity will enable Gomer to move sheets from its Speedmaster XL106LE through folding and to sewing without delays. “And that helps with throughput. Most of our runs average at 2,000 copies and this means we can be sure we can turn them around quickly which is what we are trying to do,” says Lewis.
The company is now in full swing with the busy period for book production well under way. This is keeping its press busy and requiring weekend working. The sewing machine comes in at the right time to keep pace.
While it is an entry level machine, the Aster EL operates at 10,000 cycles an hour and can deliver sewn blocks from 150x75mm up to 420x320mm. Lewis adds: “The Aster EL provides the perfect production solution, capable of producing all mainstream book production and releases the Aster Pro for more technical book production and longer run lengths.”
Kolbus UK managing director Greg Bird adds: “The EL version of the respected Aster sewing machine range is a great allrounder with a very competitive price for a high quality sewing solution. In particular its automatic variable speed during the book cycle gives maximum production rate, especially with mixed signatures, along with the possibility of digital camera signature recognition providing total job integrity.”
