Books published in small editions, with special covers, decorations and finishes in any conceivable format are the specialty of the Swiss bookbinder bookfactory.ch. The company has now introduced bar codes to optimize its production. The special feature of this bar code is, however, that it not only contains an encrypted ID, but also the individual format of each book.

When it was founded in 2004, bookfactory.ch was a pioneer in the photo book production market. Its credo at the time - that still applies today - is efficient production of individual books. Although customers of bookfactory.ch also acquire a standard book, the company’s actual competence is customized production of high-quality books. These are hallmarked by special covers, finishes and unusual formats. This not only requires comprehensive know-how, but also great skill and craftsmanship.

The company recently equipped its two existing POLAR 78 XT high-speed cutters with bar code readers to optimize cutting of the individual books. Raphael Kacimi, Head of Production at BuBu, explains the starting point for this project: “As we offer a very wide range of formats, we wanted to have an individual cutting program for each product. As we already have two POLAR high-speed cutters in operation, we discussed our requirements with POLAR. It quickly became apparent that we would be able to upgrade our existing equipment. The additional bar code DI-function completely fulfilled our expectations. Today I can say that we have enhanced the process reliability considerably, the error quota is zero. We have also become more flexible.”

POLAR’s DI Bar Code

With the DI bar code function, POLAR offers the option of generating the cutting program directly from the cut sizes encrypted in the bar code. This function is part of the bar code option for all POLAR cutting machines and high-speed cutters. While the name of the cutting program is encrypted in a conventional bar code, with this version the individual cut sizes are saved in the bar code. This bar code can then be scanned with the bar-code reader integrated into the machine and the data it contains can be used directly for a cutting program. Cutting programs can therefore be created very easily and the tooling time of the cutting machine is minimized. In addition, the cutting machine can be run independently and does not have to be integrated into the workflow.