 Pilpel .jpg "Click to enlarge")
One of Perth's most respected printers has installed a Wohlenberg perfect binder in its
finishing subsidiary, replacing the last one it bought from CPI 10 years ago, as the
mining boom provides a surging workload.
RiCHARD Pilpel - or Dick, as he is commonly known in the industry - has a big board in his office, covered with photos. Some are his own grandchildren, the rest are the children and grandchildren of staff. It's a typical action from Dick, 78-year-old managing director of West Australian printing firm Pilpel Print, who likes to treat staff as family, and says he believes staff are more important than clients - how else would the business exist.The other important cog is having the right equipment. Print Finishing Line, a subsidiary of Pilpel Print, installed a fully automatic Wohlenberg Perfect Binder City e, including VSS inline foredge trimming, from CPI.
Print Finishing Line, which Pilpel set up from scratch in 1988, and is run by general manager Chris Duncan, offers the largest range of finishing to Perth's print industry. It has capacity to do perfect binding, saddle stitching, section sewing, loop stapling, strip gluing (plus all types of folding) and laminating.
Pilpel says, “Our prime machines are an Osako saddle stitcher and this new Wohlenberg City e, which replaces our last Wohlenberg, a Cityline 4000. That lasted us for 10 years, with no trouble whatsoever. We always like to keep up to date in the industry, and if you're on a good thing, stick to it. So that's what we have done.”
Print Finishing Line's new binder also has a PUR unit. Pilpel says the latest PUR glue provides a better overall job. “It does much better quality binding - the square spine is neater, and the new PUR glue is much stronger than traditional hot melt.
“That's going to be another attraction, and we hope it will bring in extra work. Previously, we've only done sewing, so the PUR glue will be a good option.”
“Of course, we used to battle speed at times, because we are one of the only real trade houses in Perth, so much of the finishing work comes to us. That extra speed on our new City e is 6000cph - a couple of thousand per hour faster than our previous model - has been very handy, particularly when we were absolutely chock-a-block with annual reports. The automatic makeready makes job-to-job turnaround so much faster.
“We only do annual reports for Western Australia, but of course, they all come out at the same time. There's a lot of mining companies now that weren't here a year or so ago, and they all have reports. When a client wants their report out, they can't wait another week, they want it now.
“Mining has become the flavour of the month. There are a lot of companies floating and every one of them, whether they have struck gold or iron, still has to produce a balance sheet to their shareholders. I think we have more share flotations here than in any other state - even though population wise we are smaller than Queensland or Victoria or NSW”
