Another year has come to a close and, once again, the opportunities afforded by digital printing are top of mind. The number of books and commercial products transitioning from offset to on demand digital print is increasing. This is creating greater pressure on the manufacturer of these short-run titles and personalized products to incorporate new tools and finishing technologies that enable the most efficient  workflow.

Optimizing the digital workflow is not an easy task. Digital printing often results in more complexity in the finishing process because it welcomes a host of variables, from print on demand, to different format sizes, to personalization and customization. But these variables can be lucrative game-changers for you and your customers.

I’m pleased to report that Muller Martini continues to lead the way in advancing the digital finishing workflow with tools that offer more automation and more machine capabilities. This year, Muller introduced “Touchless Workflow,” which allows digitally produced products to be efficiently finished on both our saddle stitchers and perfect binders and essentially eliminates any manual data input for job set up and system changeover.

What’s truly exciting about this technology is its potential to permeate and expedite the entire digital finishing process. Touchless Workflow is barcode-driven, which provides a single point of entry for set-up data to eliminate downstream mistakes.  It is easy and inexpensive to implement as the barcodes can be generated by the manufacturer’s existing prepress system. And it optimizes Variable Data Printing (VDP) production with full product validation, including confirmation of book content, matching cover to content and integrating a run list into the manufacturer’s workflow to guarantee job completion. What’s more, Touchless Workflow can speed the mailing and distribution process, automatically sorting each and every product by postal route or carrier.

Touchless Workflow technology accommodates a wide variety of content, be it static, strictly digital, hybrid with some offset, or variable content in the form of personalized covers. And since it limits unnecessary human intervention, the ultimate result is a more efficient, error-free and productive workflow.

Like you, Muller Martini is invested in the future of finishing. Which is why, in 2016 and beyond, we will continue to explore and engineer new ways to use technology to unearth efficiencies that were impossible, or simply too cumbersome, to consider before the age of digital print manufacturing.

My best wishes for a prosperous New Year.

Sincerely,
Werner Naegeli
President and CEO
MMNA