Kent, Washington - ESP Printing Inc. is a commercial printer that until a few months ago was, according to ESP General Manager Mark Williams, "in need of newer and better automation." Since installing a state-of-the-art Bravo-T saddle stitcher from Muller Martini, ESP Printing has achieved substantial gains in operational efficiency. "We can now run production with more pages utilizing additional feeders, we also have tighter quality control measures," says Mr. Williams. "Turnaround is faster, jobs are better." Another benefit of the Bravo-T installation at ESP Printing has been new opportunities to grow the company's sales. "[The Bravo-T] is a good fit for our business and it has opened up huge capacity for us," continues Mark Williams. "We used to fight to get work out the door, now our speed rate is higher with greater productivity...and we have additional business." ESP Printing, which runs both web and sheetfed equipment at its facility, handles a broad array of print jobs including catalogs, brochures, magazines, direct mail and various publications. ESP has 54 employees and its diverse client roster includes direct marketing firms as well as companies in the travel, entertainment and sports industries. Complementing the Bravo-T installation, ESP Printing will also be installing a Muller Martini Apollo compensating stacker. The Bravo-T saddle stitcher has been engineered to deliver rapid production and enhanced productivity to busy shops, running at up to 11,000 cycles per hour and featuring PLC assisted controls and a menu-guided screen for quick and easy set-ups and changeovers. Bravo-T comes equipped with a three-knife trimmer and with its modular design, it can be expanded at any time to feed up to 14 signatures or 12 signatures with a cover folder feeder - meeting the requirements of growing printing and binding businesses. In addition to the fastest make-readies of any medium-speed saddle stitcher on the market, the Muller Martini Bravo-T offers the highest price-performance ratio of any stitcher in its class. Other key advantages include: gripper and suction opening; individual 1:2/1:1 gearing; heavy-duty in-line single book trimmer; and frequency controlled drive. The Apollo compensating stacker processes saddle-stitched products into layers or cross-stacked piles. The labor-saving Apollo stacker can be easily operated by just one person and it's capable of a production speed of 16,000 cycles per hour. All machine processes are conveniently displayed and monitored on Apollo's controller, and, size changes can be completed quickly without tools, shortening set-up times.