AGS, a Consolidated Graphics, Inc. (NYSE: CGX) company, recently installed the first Standard Hunkeler PF7 Double Plow-fold system in North America, allowing the Kodak Prosper 5000XL high-speed inkjet web press to gain efficiencies by running and finishing wider rolls into book blocks.

“The Standard Hunkeler plow folder completes AGS’s digital inkjet book production workflow,” said AGS President Katie Kriemelmeyer. “This technology bridges our Kodak Prosper press and established bookbinding lines. We’ve been up-and-running for several weeks and have had outstanding results which we’re eager to share with our customers.”

This technology allows AGS’s digital inkjet Prosper press to print more pages per hour on wider web rolls with minimum paper waste and quick integration with standard binding workflows. This maximizes efficiencies, shortens schedules and ultimately drives down costs for AGS customers.

AGS also runs a wide variety of stocks on the Prosper press – including challenging stocks like 45# matte coated and 38# groundwood – to meet publisher requirements.

The PF7 system can operate in-line with or off-line from a digital web press. At AGS, pre-printed rolls are mounted on the Standard Hunkeler UW7 30-wide unwinder, threaded through the double plow folds, and then into the Standard Hunkeler CS6 rotary cutting and LS6 stacking module. Perforations are applied in the web direction for accurate high-speed plow-folding and lay-flat signatures at up to 500 feet per minute. The folded web is cut into 4-, 6-, or 8-page signatures, which are cleanly stacked as individual book blocks for easier downstream handling.

“The PF7 gives us the substrate flexibility publishers need, and fast changeovers for different multiple-up impositions,” said Kriemelmeyer. “We now run maximum efficiency on short and long runs because this system allows quick changeovers between formats.”

AGS first saw the PF7 system earlier this year at the Hunkeler Innovationdays event in Switzerland, and determined it would be the most streamlined approach for finishing inkjet digital rolls. “We value the trust AGS has placed in us,” said David Reny, executive vice president, Standard Finishing Systems. “They and other CGX-affiliated companies have embraced the Hunkeler and Horizon postpress portfolio, and we remain committed to helping them reach new levels of production efficiency.”

AGS rounds-out their on-demand book production with Standard Horizon perfect binding technology. The PF7 system can be been in high-speed operation running Kodak Prosper pre-printed wide-web rolls in this video produced by AGS.