Making a case for hardback books
Flexpress expands its hardback book production capacity with equipment suited to both short and longer case-bound print runs.
Often, simply adding a hardcover increases the perceived quality of a book and, as a result, its value.
Because of this, case binding, as it is known in the trade, is growing in popularity, and Flexpress is keeping up with demand.
Growing Demand for Hardback Books
Book and booklet printing is at the core of what we do at Flexpress.
Since adding hardback books to our portfolio, demand has grown quickly. However, producing them—particularly in the short run lengths in which we specialise—is time-consuming.
Without additional labour, it became clear that we needed to find a way to speed up the process.
Finding the Right Equipment
The challenge is that hardback-cover equipment tends to jump from machines capable of producing relatively few covers per hour to systems designed for thousands, with little in between.
Typical Flexpress hardback runs range from one-off copies to quantities of around 500. With our existing equipment, the upper end of that range was proving difficult to manage efficiently.
After researching the market, we found a suitable machine: the IML.
It runs at approximately twice the speed of our existing machine, making it much better suited to longer runs.
Keeping Both Machines
The IML has a longer setup time, which makes it less suitable for very short quantities.
The solution was simple: keep both machines.
Flexpress is now equipped to produce hardback books efficiently in quantities ranging from one copy to 500 and beyond.
For more information, email sales@flexpress.co.uk or call 0116 267 6269.