First Wilstead book finisher goes to SOS

Southern hemisphere’s first Wilstead Fastset 60/700 book finishing line allows Sydney printer to respond almost immediately to supply-demand needs of the sector.

SOS Print & Media’s latest technology acquisition and installation, is the only book finishing line capable of changing trim size in as little as five seconds. The printer now has three book on-demand production lines operating in house.

Michael Schulz, director of SOS says there is no question that books in short runs, printed on-demand, are the major factors in the future of successful publishing.

“Our response time to urgent short run orders has dropped dramatically, but our productivity has increased since we can stack some books three or four-high depending on thickness, and trim in one cycle. It is a perfect fit to our Kodak Prosper, Océ Varioprint and Ricoh digital press production.”

Fully integrated inline with a Horizon BQ470 prefect binder, the new finishing line is able to read barcodes that tell the three-knife trimming station the dimensions of each book as it is conveyed, for automated size changing in only five seconds.

According to Schulz, its publishing clients, educational course providers and even self-publishers will benefit from this new automated capability to “print, finish and deliver one book at a time, or ten, or one hundred or five thousand.

“There is no reason why binder a trimmer shouldn’t be inline because the Fastest is capable of adjusting itself to different book sizes, removing makeready times.”

Pictured: Michael Schulz, director of SOS in front of the completed book finishing line.


Andy McCourt, local agent for Wilstead says new finishing technology such as the Fastset, coupled with digital printing, “revitalizes the book industry and passes cost benefits all the way upstream, through inventory control to publishers’ marketing departments who can now enjoy shorter time-to-market, easy test marketing and uncorrected proof copies that look and feel like the final, corrected, result.

Wilstead’s engineer out from the UK, Richard Tunstead handed the Fastset line over to SOS’s digital production team after a two-week installation and training period.