Dual-mode feeder helps facilitate a radical departure in on-demand booklet-making by enabling in-line convenience and off-line flexibility.

When the first Xerox DocuTech printer and the innovative C.P. Bourg SBM-1 Signature Booklet Maker were connected in-line more than 20 years ago, it marked the beginning of automatic document finishing.

Today, the new Xerox Dual-Mode Sheet Feeder (BSFEx) by C.P. Bourg is helping to mark an equally important advance as a critical component in the Xerox IntegratedPLUS Finishing Solution for Booklets, for which the company won a Graph Expo 2012 MUST SEE 'EM award in the "Postpress Finishing -- Digital and Small-Format" category.

The Bourg dual-mode device makes it possible for production finishers that are part of the Xerox IntegratedPLUS Finishing Solution for Booklets to produce booklets as easily and securely from an in-line press as from off-line print streams.

"The Xerox IntegratedPLUS Finishing Solution for Booklets writes a new chapter in booklet-making convenience, flexibility and efficiency by applying one-touch prepress and automatic finishing setup to reduce costs and improve production efficiency from multiple print engines," says Richard F. Trapilo, Executive Vice President and General Manager, C.P. Bourg Inc.

"We at C.P. Bourg are proud to be the supplier of the finishing equipment that plays a key role in its implementation."

To achieve automatic finishing of jobs printed off-line, the Bourg BSFEx is equipped with a hand-held barcode scanner integral to the Xerox IntegratedPLUS Finishing Solution for Booklets.

In operation, an off-line digital press prints a "banner page" displaying a unique barcode when its stacker is loaded. The barcode contains a reference to the entire series of Job Description Format (JDF) job tickets associated with each printed job in the stack. When the stack is wheeled to the BSFEx, the operator simply scans the barcode on the banner page before transferring the entire stack on the cart's air-table into the BSFEx, virtually hands-free.

The JDF job tickets are used by the in-line finishing system to set up all finishing function changeovers automatically for each job in the stack, including bleed and trim dimensions, folding crease placement, stitch position, paper dimensions and paper weight.

At Graph Expo 2012 in Booth 1200, Xerox is demonstrating the efficiency and versatility of its IntegratedPLUS Finishing Solution for Booklets with two Bourg BSFEx-based finishers.

One Bourg dual-mode BSFEx Sheet Feeder and a Bourg BMEx Booklet Maker is operating in-line, accepting jobs directly from Xerox's iGen 150 Press and from remote print streams, and another BSFEx with a Bourg BDFEx Document Finisher is running off-line as part of the IntegratedPLUS Finishing Solution for Booklets in a fully standalone mode.

"By sharing the same finishing equipment to produce booklets and other documents from in-line and near-line/off-line finishing workflows with the same high degree of integrity, the dual-mode Bourg BSFEx maximizes asset utilization, finishing efficiency, flexibility and productivity and delivers an extraordinarily high ROI," Mr. Trapilo concludes.