Folder Upgrade Brings Automation to Broward County's In-plant

In-plants seeking competitive advantages in the bindery routinely turn to automated equipment to speed the finishing process. That was the route followed by the Broward County Print Shop in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., when it installed a new Standard Horizon AFC-564A folder and a Standard Horizon CRF-362 creaser/folder last year.

The 564A replaced an MBO B18 folder, reports Print Shop Manager Ramon Enrique Canals, who notes the retired folder was purchased back in 1988.

“It was an upgrade because we needed something digital and this had the knife fold, so we had the same amount of folds while upgrading to something more streamlined and automated,” Canals explains. He points out that the MBO was starting to show its age.

“For tri-folds on the MBO, you had to manually set the machine,” Canals recalls. “The 564A is basically plug-and-play. You just hit tri-fold 8.5x11˝ and it goes.”

Canals is impressed by the time-saving automated features of the 564A, and the operators don’t miss having to deal with manual fold setups.

The Broward County Print Shop operates as an internal service fund and charges back its customers. The in-plant only does business with government entities, including the Broward County Supervisor of Elections, the sheriff’s office, health department and other municipal agencies.

“What we do in that chargeback is collect funds to eventually replace equipment,” Canals explains. “So we do have a reserve for these particular cases. We justify it to our budget office, but basically, it is not too difficult to justify replacing a 30-year-old piece of equipment.”

Canals adds that Broward County is very forward-thinking when it comes to technology and is open to having everything done internally. This mindset led to the addition of the CRF-362 creaser/folder, originally to pair with an existing Morgana machine.

“It was actually purchased for redundancy, but we found that the staff was all gravitating to the new machine and they didn’t want to see the Morgana anymore,” Canals confides. “It is just night and day and the quality is unmatched.”

The Morgana subsequently was relegated to the rear of the shop, and now serves as a backup option. The new CRF-362 creaser/folder is also being relied upon for perfing jobs, Canals says. Now, the six-employee shop doesn’t have to outsource perfing tasks or purchase pre-perfed paper.

“The precision just changed everything,” Canals lauds. “I always joke around that it is so easy to use that even our accountant could use it. I am very impressed with the unit and actually have used it myself during training. I ran a tri-fold crease job without a problem, setting it up from start to finish.”

Canals is also pleased with the quality of the work coming off the CRF-362, noting that while it runs a bit slower than the Morgana, it does not jam.

“Our turnaround times were already pretty short, but now with this new equipment, customers get jobs same-day,” Canals concludes. “If somebody orders some brochures, we can have them creased and folded while they wait in our lobby.”