Standard Finishing Systems has worked with AGS, a Consolidated Graphics, Inc.  company in White Plains, MD, to enhance its ability to serve all volume segments of the healthcare, financial and legal printing markets by increasing digital printing flexibility with a new high-performance finishing system.  The new system enables booklet production from both the company's high-speed digital inkjet web press and cut-sheet digital presses.

The Standard Horizon StitchLiner 6000 Digital roll-fed saddlestitching system is fronted by the Standard Hunkeler UW6 unwinder and CS6 rotary cutter, for high-performance booklet production from a pre-printed roll. A high-speed Standard Horizon HSF-30 in-line sheet feeder lets the same system process digital cut-sheets. "AGS has been retooling our digital postpress to round-out the services we offer customers," said AGS President Katie Kriemelmeyer.  "Our state-of-the-art cut-sheet and roll-fed digital imaging is now complemented by game-changing finishing technology. This combined digital print-and-finish production platform gives us the horsepower to deliver efficiency, fast turnarounds and ultimately lower costs for AGS customers."  

This comes on the heels of another important investment for AGS, the recently installed Standard Hunkeler PF7 Double Plow-fold system -- a North America first -- which enables AGS to efficiently convert wide webs pre-printed on their Kodak Prosper 5000XL high-speed digital inkjet web press into book blocks.

The Standard Horizon StitchLiner 6000 has a separate feed station that can be used for covers or to insert another sheet into the booklet. A dual track sequencing and buffering module allows the system to produce variable sheet-count booklets. The system employs advanced Horizon touchscreen controls for quick, automated set-up and changeover.

In a related move, AGS also added a Standard KAS mail inserting system with a dynamic-thickness booklet feeder, so jobs can travel from print to finishing to mailstream under one roof, in the shortest time with maximum efficiency. Many digital print jobs are personalized with variable data, so AGS networked the saddlestitcher and inserter with the powerful Standard VIVA camera-based integrity system, to verify each document at the page-, book- and insertion-level.  All cameras tie into a unified database so VIVA can track and report the status of any document at any time.

"These new finishing and verification systems are welcome additions to our stable, giving us application diversity and flexibility," said Kriemelmeyer. "AGS can now address nearly every vertical digital print market with a robust, reliable and scalable production solution."

"AGS is at the forefront of digital print and finishing," said Standard Executive Vice President David Reny, "so we're gratified to partner with them in providing best-of-breed feeding and finishing solutions that will help them drive their print business to the next level."