Spiel Associates

As the costs of outsourcing perfect binding crept upward, Melvin Cooper knew it was time for his in-plant to take control. So earlier this year, Berea College Printing Services installed a Spiel Sterling Digibinder Plus, bringing perfect binding capabilities in-house, decreasing costs and improving turnaround times.

While at PRINT 13, the manager of an in-plant at a Midwestern energy company saw a demo of the Sterling Digipunch and Rilecart WB-450 double loop wire binder at the Spiel Associates booth and was impressed. So last spring the 11-employee in-plant installed both pieces of equipment and began punching and binding training manuals, calendars, trade show brochures and more.

With equipment specs, pictures and video all available online, why should an in-plant manager bother going to Graph Expo any more? Those who made the trip to Chicago last month have lots of good reasons.

These products for the in-plant market will be on display at Graph Expo.

Hidden deep inside New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) is an art studio of a different sort—a graphic arts operation responsible for producing high-quality printed pieces in support of the iconic museum. With a four-color Ryobi 784 EP perfecting press, as well as Konica Minolta bizhub PRESS C8000 and C6000 color printers, the busy 11-employee in-plant prints projects the MET's quality-conscious designers can be proud of.

Spiel Associates demonstrated a wide range of bindery and finishing equipment at an open house it hosted at its Long Island City, N.Y., facility. On display was a full line of Graphic Whizard creasers, UV Coaters, the new SCC slitter, cutter, creaser and folders.

With traditional offset exhibitors like Heidelberg giving the Chicago trade show a pass, the digital print vendors were the new kings. Xerox, Canon, Konica Minolta and Fujifilm led the pack in booth size, and each of them had new inkjet production presses to proclaim.

When students in Virginia Tech’s architectural and design courses want to bind their final projects together in an elegant portfolio, they now have a place to go. Printing Services recently installed a Sterling Digibinder, from Spiel Associates—a self-adjusting perfect binder made to handle digitally printed pages.

Here's a look at some of the new printing and binding equipment and software that will be shown at PRINT 13, taking place in Chicago, September 8-12.

Designed for high-quality, low-cost output in production environments, the new Ricoh Pro C5100s digital color printer prints 65 color prints per minute at resolutions up to 1,200x4,800 dpi. Its Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL) technology emits laser beams to adjust to sheet expansion and contraction, minimizing color shift. The printer automatically readjusts paper to align front and back registration for more accurate printing during long print runs. An elastic fusing belt ensures more consistent transfer and toner adhesion on specialty stocks.