A 'World's First' for 'World's Oldest' Bookbinder
Their 'secret': modern, computerized, up-to-date machinery, which allows fast-change-over and, best of all, produces superior quality products. Short runs represent no special challenge to Acme, as they bind up to 3,000 individual books every day.
These books have different titles, dimensions (height, width, bulk), different colors, and different binding material. Their on-hand technology is ideal for small-edition runs of one to several hundred copies.
As such, Acme is perhaps the best equipped facility to handle virtually every job, from a 100,000-edition run to a small-edition run, or even individual books.
Some of Acme's recent investments in leading-edge equipment include automated book sewing; a new Kolbus perfect binder capable of producing hotmelt, PUR, or cold-emulsion adhesive bindings; Horauf casemaking and a Muller Martini VBF BL500 hardcover line.
An expert in economics, Paul Parisi quickly recognized a valuable new tool for his binding establishment: the all new EZ-Cut cover material cutting robot. As stated earlier, the back-breaking job of cutting cover materials efficiently required a solution.
The EZ-Cut answer came from Jack Bendror, president of Mekatronics Inc., a machinery supplier in Port Washington, N.Y. Bendror invented many machines used daily in library binderies and, now, in on-demand binding establishments.
A careful study of the materials used in library and in on-demand hard cover binding revealed that, on average, binders keep an inventory of six to 10 different sizes, in 20 to 24 different colors.
Because cutting small quantities from rolls is another expensive and back-breaking task, most binders opt to pay premium prices for pre-cut pieces. These are stored in bins, and must subsequently be cut to the right size. The final dimension is dictated by the actual measurement of the height, width, and thickness of the book block. With some premium covering materials costing $5 a yard or more, waste becomes a significant cost.
