Pantera provides flexibility

Print Solutions

With its high degree of flexibility, the Muller Martini Pantera lends itself to both short digital runs and long offset runs, ranging from five to a million softcover products. That is why Finishline Print Finishers bookbindery in Hollinwood has relied on the perfect binder for two years now.

Increasingly short lead times, decreasing run sizes per job, rising numbers of jobs, customers’ high quality expectations of the finished product and the need to switch quickly and flexibly between jobs involving a wide range of binding types are the daily reality of many bookbinderies. Thanks to its compact design, the Pantera perfect binder not only provides a great deal of flexibility if space is tight, but also, in addition to proven hot melt binding, enables PUR binding for a performance range of up to 4000 cycles per hour. What is more, it covers a wide size range, allowing it to be used for highly varied jobs.

The highlights of the Pantera include easy and clear operation via the touchscreen. Thanks to its Automatic Make Ready System (Amrys), it has a high degree of automation, which enables extremely short set up and changeover times.

Will Kilpatrick, managing director of Finishline, considers the short make ready times essential given the increasing number of short run jobs. ‘It is becoming all the more important because the way the trade is going we are being asked for same day turnaround on jobs,’ he said.

That is made possible by the interactive set up wizard. It assists the operator not only in setting up the perfect binder quickly, but also in other tasks, such as storing and loading of repeat jobs, monitoring of the glue pot and spinner temperature, and automatic glue length control for spine and side gluing. The settings of all stations are displayed for the given production run. A Book Data Centre (BDC) is also optionally available, allowing size data to be measured and sent to the machine automatically.

Will Kilpatrick (left), founder and managing director of Finishline: ‘We increasingly produce softcover jobs with same day turnaround using the Pantera.’

He is pictured with (centre) works manager Nick Keppie and (right) Martin Harrison, project manager at Muller Martini UK.