Finishing & Screen Printing
Prim Hall introduces Sig Sorter, a system to reclaim rejected signatures.
Thursday 30. October 2008 - Gatherers/Collators that have a process controls that reject incorrect collated sets create a large volume of diverted signatures.
The greater the number of active feeders and the more problematic the signatures run are two key factors that influence the volume of rejects. On some large magazines, the diverted products may be as large as 15% of the production volume. On the low end, the volume is frequently 2.5% of the products.
With paper and printing prices as high as they are now, and appearing to be even a higher percentage of the production costs, the value at trying to improve the process is becoming more compelling. Currently, the most common method to reclaim the diverted product is the manually sort the signatures into common groups of the same signature so they can be rerun.
The Sig Sorter consists of a feeder that singulates all of the various signatures into a stream of individual signatures. Each passes under a video recognition system where through a learn process, the system recognizes which signature it is. The system then tracks the signature to a selected divert point where the signatures is placed in a shingled stream with like products.
PrimHalls introduction of their Signature (Sig) Sorter provides a means to deal with the rejected product in a more efficient way. Some of the benefits from the Sig Sorter are straight forward, while others, while not so obvious, are significant financial savings. The most obvious is that the labor required to sort is reduced to 1/3 to ½. A second benefit is the time is reduced from when it is rejected until it is ready to be rerun. Staying ahead of the volume of rejects is key, so that when the job is nearing the end, the rejects are at the gatherer instead on a pallet or in a trash bin. This can reduce the amount of overages in the press runs by approximately 0.5%. These factors alone, on a long run job, can be more significant than the labor reduction.
Third point to consider in the justification is the revenue that can be generated from being able to produce more books to fulfill the opportunity for the billable overages. If there are more signatures there at the end of the run, it will increase the overage counts.
Lastly, the Sig Sorter will help reduce the situations when you go have to press to fulfill a shortage. Such situations not only are an extremely costly process, the also have a disastrous affect on schedule. The impact of revenue due to the delay in completion of the production can be perhaps the biggest benefit of the Sig Sorter of all.
PrimHall has created a software package for their sales team that will help them help you see the financial benefits of a Sig Sorter in your production operation.