Sodexo Enterprises, Versailles, France, has added a Plockmatic BLM5050 booklet maker to its large print production installation. The new booklet maker links inline to one of the operations Canon imagePRESS C10010VP print engines.

Sodexo Enterprises are one of the forty largest companies in France. They produce a wide range of products, mostly focused on food and facilities management. In the in-house print unit Sodexo produce a large variety of print on their Canon print engines that needs to be finished. Many of the print products are output from the Canon devices in booklet form, from 5 to 50 sheets in A4 format (both portrait and landscape), with most requiring a short print run – from just a couple of copies, up to 30. Approximately 80% of the work produced is for their own internal business use, with 20% of work for other companies within the Sodexo Group.

The company was founded in 1963. The in-house operation in Versailles, which incorporates the company's Central Reprographics Department (CRD), came into being in 1990.

The Plockmatic BLM5050 booklet maker is installed in combination with a Canon imagePRESS C10010VP. The CRD houses one more Canon imagePRESS C10010VP with an existing Plockmatic BLM50 booklet maker, and two Canon imagePRESS C10010VP with Canon AN2 finishers. The department also includes many different types of offline equipment finishing kit, including guillotines, folders, wire binders, and glue binders.

Product Director for Sodexo, Laurent Barbut, said: “We need to produce a lot of different publications every day with our Canon print engines. It’s critical that these documents are finished correctly, even though many are very short runs.”

Senior Account Manager from Canon France, Francois-Xavier Duvernay, commenting on behalf of the print engine supplier, said: “Canon won their first deal eight years ago replacing Xerox/Horizon with Canon/Plockmatic. Since then, Canon has been the main supplier regarding professional print, wide format, software, and inline finishing. As for many in the print industry, the volumes are going down for Sodexo. Because of that they are looking for easy-to-use inline print and finishing solutions to keep print production in-house. Canon and Plockmatic has been able to provide the perfect solutions together for Sodexo so they can produce high quality booklets and other products in an easy and time saving way.”

Canon engineers work closely with Plockmatic to ensure the closest possible integration of the booklet making system with the print engine. This supports ease of use and allows operators of different skill levels to get the most out of the entire printing system

Speaking particularly about the latest Plockmatic addition, responsible for the production, Cyril Pioli, said: “The BLM5050 is very user friendly – and that’s one of the reasons why we chose this model. The display panel on the unit tells you exactly what to do, step by step, so it’s easy for an inexperienced operator to learn. We also have the Plockmatic BLM50 from some time ago, so we know that Plockmatic solutions are both reliable and robust.

“The new finishing unit is a great time saver. It means an overall increase in production, which gives my staff additional time to complete other tasks on the job. We are particularly impressed with the ability to finish A4 landscape publications – we couldn’t do that before.”

Laurent Barbut adds: “The new Plockmatic unit has already saved us a lot of production time and money because we can do all of the job production in-house – there's no need to outsource anything, which is something that always comes at a higher cost.”

Overall, Cyril Pioli said: “Plockmatic deliver a reliable product, with a strong construction, that is easy to use – an ideal solution to work in tandem with our Canon printers. Whilst I do really love our French car industry, Plockmatic equipment is like comparing a Citroen to a Mercedes! It's built so much better than other products, and it just works.

“Because we had used a Plockmatic unit before, and we were extremely satisfied with that, we had no hesitation in returning to them again, and this time, of course, we had added extra functionality being able to produce A4 landscape books.”

With reference to future investments Pioli said: “We are always looking for new solutions to invest in – solutions that can make our business better in terms of quality or in our working environment. Special requests from our customers may require a further equipment investment, but for now we are good!”

Plockmatic BLM5000
A new kind of booklet making system that combines robust and reliable performance with a new range of applications, including landscape format. Add the Plockmatic signature square fold finish to A4 landscape format documents for the appearance of a perfect bound book. BLM5000 is available in both staple and stitch versions.

The BLM5000 series is compatible with Canon imagePRESS V1350, imagePRESS V1000 and the imagePRESS V900 series.

The staple version can handle sheets from 206 x 210mm up to 320 x 620mm, in weights from 65 to 350gsm (dependant on paper type). The maximum book thickness is 10mm (approx. 200 pages of 80gsm). The unit contains two low impact staple heads with moving clinchers.

The stitch version can handle sheets from 120 x 210mm up to 320 x 620mm, in weights from 65 to 350gsm (dependant on paper type). With RTC minimum sheet size is 148.5 x 210mm. The maximum book thickness is 10mm, dependant on paper size (approx. 200 pages of 80gsm). The unit includes two ISP stitch heads.