Wood Dale, Illinois (November 04, 2008) Driven by their customer’s needs, TPM Graphics, Inc.  recently installed a new Standard Horizon Stitchliner 5500 purchased from Fuller Grafix, Inc. to grow its direct mail business and streamline bindery operations.

TPM Graphics got its start in 1985 in the northwest suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois and has grown from a one press shop to a full service, multi-color operation, offering single to six-color printing plus coating.  TPM also provides complete binding, stitching and mailing services to a select group of customers, and now specializes in saddle stitched booklets with a run length of up to 50,000.

When Paul Mongoven, TPM president, noticed a bottleneck in his bindery, he consulted with Fuller Grafix, who after review of their operations, recommended the Standard Horizon Stitchliner.  The Stitchliner combines the efficiencies and ease of operation of a flat sheet collator with the productivity, versatility and quality of a saddle stitch system.

“The advantage of the Stitchliner system is that it can collate, score, fold, saddle stitch and 3-knife trim in a single pass”, stated Mongoven. “Make-ready is also extremely fast and ideal for short, medium and long production runs”.  Additionally, the Stitchliner, like most of the Horizon equipment is JDF compliant, accepting CIP4 technology for future automated binderies

“With an interactive, icon based touch screen and end-to-end automation, the Stitchliner allows our operators to achieve fast and easy job set-ups and changeovers.  It has already had a substantial impact on our productivity, and bottom line,” Mongoven added.

The equipment purchased from Fuller Grafix had more flexibility and in-line capability than a conventional saddlestitcher. TPM also purchased a MKU-54, which will run in-line with the Stitchliner, as well as other equipment for the purpose of refolding flats to qualify for lower postal rates. “Combined with an in-line tabbing unit, the Standard Horizon Stitchliner is the best machine I could ever have purchased for expanding my business”, according to Mongoven.

“We chose Fuller Grafix because of their close proximity to our shop, breadth of their service department with fully trained technicians on-site, plus availability of replacement parts. In fact, their service team was even involved in the sales cycle.  The Fuller Grafix team was great to work with in all areas from sales to service”, added Mongoven.