Book Business Extra Q&A: Muller Martini’s Andy Fetherman on Why 2007 Will Be a Transitional Year for Digital Printing

When did the company fully accept the fact digital was going to become a way of life?
Fetherman: Back in ‘98 before I knew anything about it, the Muller Martini brain trust in Switzerland said, “You know what, this digital thing is pretty interesting.”

It was basically a lot of table-top devices. There was no high-quality finishing solution. We said, ‘We need to step up because we see a migration that is going to happen in the future.’

“… It had some growing pains in the beginning. It certainly did. We didn’t quite know the digital market. We didn’t know what they needed. Like cover mats and things like that, which we didn’t have at the time. We went back to the drawing board.

At Graph Expo ‘04, we introduced our SimgaBinder, the brother of the Amigo Digital, but we renamed it because it’s a new platform that took in everything we learned in three years in the digital market—the need for cover mats, the need for one off setup, the need for the measuring system to measure. All these things have come together. We’re ready for the push in ‘07.