Meccanotecnica has integrated its Universe Web book sewing system with Tecnau’s unwind units. This increases the appeal of the automated book finishing system as previously Meccanotecnica could only integrate in this way with Hunkeler equipment. With the integration between Muller Martini and Hunkeler becoming deeper, Tecnau felt it needed another partner to counter any perceived bias towards Muller Martini on behalf of the Swiss company. This fear has been misplaced as Hunkeler has remained fastidiously independent and secondly because Muller Martini has withdrawn from the sewn book market.
At the end of last year Muller Martini announced a streamlining of its product lines and this included an end to production of its Ventura sewing machines. At that point the company had the parts to make three Ventura MC200 machines, but no more Ventura MC160 or the Ventura MC Digital or MC Connect would be made.
“Thread sewing technology ha become a niche market and is losing importance in book production. It does not play a decisive role in the smart factory,” says Muller Martini. “For this reason, our thread sewing machine business has structurally low unit sales.” The machines will be supported for at least seven years.
This has had little bearing on the link between Tecnau and Meccanotecnica. Tecnau has been keen to increase its share of the continuous feed inkjet market so has needed to be able to respond to customer requests. Tecnau CEO Stefano De Marco says: “This is an important and exciting moment for the book market. By combining Tecnau’s rollfed cutting expertise with Meccanotecnica’s proven threadsewn binding technology, we are giving publishers and printers reliable, scalable finishing solutions that strengthen quality and workflow stability across the industry.”
The integration applies to both Tecnau’s Cutter C7 running to the Universe Web and the Revolution 50 high speed models linking to the Universe Web full cycle version for higher volume applications.
The Universe Web takes the paper feed, cuts, folds, gathers then thread sews book blocks ready for trimming and casing in. In the higher volume version, later operations can also be carried out in line. Meccanotecnica CEO Francesco Mussita adds: “This collaboration reinforces our commitment to supporting the evolution of digital book manufacturing. By integrating our Universe Web technology with Tecnau’s systems, we enable consistent, high end sewn book production that meets the growing demands of today’s publishing and educational markets.”
Muller Martini’s decision to pull out of the book sewing market coincides with a shake up to its digital book production portfolio. The Sigmaline modular finishing system has been discontinued in favour of the Hunkeler derived POPP7 plowfolder and Starbook plowfolder units. Again Muller Martini is promising support will go on even when the products are discontinued.
