New trends in bookbinding processing technology

In May this year, drupa2000, the world's largest international integrated printing equipment exhibition, was held in Germany. Many people attended the event. The wide variety of new equipment and technologies introduced at the show provided abundant information for people in the 21st century in the development of various fields related to prepress, printing, and postpress engineering. As far as the post-press project is concerned, the author believes that the following trends are worthy of attention. (1) The industry's enthusiasm for further improving the speed of equipment operation is not high. (2) With binding as the center, the prepress and postpress works have become more systematic. (3) The equipment is more intelligent. (4) The additional value of individual equipment increases. (5) The printing industry began to target online real-time systems. (6) The new bookbinding system PUR is becoming more popular. The analysis is as follows: (1) In the past, the binding and processing manufacturers have been eager to make a fuss about improving the operating speed of the equipment in order to increase the production efficiency. At present, the actual speed of operation through the line has reached 18,000 rpm, and the devices used have become increasingly smaller, and the range of paper and materials used has become wider and wider. Therefore, it can be said that further increase in speed is not necessary. Moreover, if the speed is further increased, the existing adhesive must be improved in terms of dryness. In addition, there must be a corresponding increase in equipment (for example, the regulator needs to be double fitted), technical restrictions, and increased equipment investment. Will certainly have a certain influence on the enthusiasm of investors. (2) The contribution of streamlined production in saving manpower and improving efficiency is beyond doubt. And the printing industry has been discussing how to realize the unmanned operation from binding to sending. Nowadays, in the process of printing general books and magazines, the method of intervening in printing and dyeing rollers is commonly used to connect printers and bookbinding machines. Such semi-flowing operations have been widely used. From the binding of books to the automatic packaging of books, to the sorting and sending on demand, each process is moving toward a systematic direction. From the plant configuration of the plant, a robotic automatic palletizing and automatic transport system has also been put into practical use. In this area, the discovery of practical equipment has come to an end and has entered the period of the buyer's market for users to choose. (3) The conventional bookbinding equipment needs to be constantly adjusted when handling papers of different sizes, thicknesses, and paper quality, and is also operated manually. Therefore, the skill and experience of the operator are required to be high. In particular, the requirements for binding (shape, bonding thickness, ease of opening and closing, and the like) have recently become increasingly strict, and the need for miniaturization of the device has also increased. In this case, equipment modification is imperative. All along, only a part of the device has been input with corresponding size and thickness data, and the contents to be adjusted have been automatically preset, or remote control and digital management have been used. Due to the limitations of the objects to be processed, the conditions of paper, materials, etc. cannot be fully considered, so the effectiveness of the improvement is also limited. Therefore, in the binding machine industry, companies in the industry are aiming at the trend of “single machine ordering” to start research and development, and this trend will also become the main standard for selecting models in the future. (4) It has become a common practice to package product descriptions and other printed matter into CDs, FDs or commercial samples, and the corresponding auxiliary equipment for their production has also been greatly improved. On the other hand, in the past, production lines that were flat and hard-packed were now moving toward a borderless, high-efficiency compatible device. (5) In today's world, with the diversification of user needs and the development of network technologies, online real-time systems that can provide specific information in a specific amount of time and at a specific time are increasingly valued. Japan's major printing and publishing companies have already begun to take actions to introduce new equipment and devote themselves to this system, which can be widely used in out-of-print copying, republishing, and small-scale personal publication. Among them, Fuji Xerox Co., Ltd. took a step forward and developed a reasonable and low-cost on-line real-time system. This system has improved the printing system and is still widely used in the world as an alternative to office copiers. I believe that more new systems will come out in the future. (6) For a long time, the printing industry has adopted EVA-based hot melt adhesives. The adhesive has the advantages of fast adhesion, low price, easy operation (with reversibility), and easy storage. It can be said that it contributes greatly to the printing industry. However, the adhesive has poor durability under the influence of solvents, cold, and high temperatures, and has a large amount of smear, and is not easy to open and close. To overcome these deficiencies, the industry began to develop more excellent PUR (urethane reactive) hot melt adhesives 10 years ago. PUR is a moisture-reactive hot melt adhesive that promotes hardening by the moisture in the air. Although this hot melt adhesive has the advantage that the EVA-based hot melt does not, it is very difficult to manage the reaction process in the open barrel type plastic barrel due to the moisture reaction type, so PUR cannot completely replace EVA. Since then, a new set of systems with lower management difficulty and lower cost has been developed by adopting closed spray technology. With the development of this system, PUR has been further popularized. However, compared with EVA, there are still deficiencies such as poor operability, long hardening time, and restricted mechanical speed. There are still many problems to be solved. Next, as far as the industry trends in Japan are concerned, I would like to add the following points. (7) If the 20th century is the era of industrial technology, the 21st century is an era centered on resources and the environment. The bookbinding processing industry is also pointing to global standards without exception. Recycling of paper is one of the most important issues. Therefore, adhesives that have been specially developed and developed for recycled paper, and separation methods have become increasingly practical. Like the aforementioned PUR, it does not dissolve in the heated state and can be removed with a final filter, with excellent recyclability. However, at the same time, the use of a large amount of recycled paper will bring about a slump in the industry, and will also increase the burden on the binding industry. Therefore, while using recycled paper, we must also focus on other resources. In addition, in order to solve the dioxin pollution problem caused by the combustion of harmful substances, it is necessary to strengthen the devinyl chloride treatment on the vinyl cover. On the other hand, in order to prevent nails from being hurt, it is necessary to use more metal-free, safe and pollution-free hot-press binding. (8) At present, companies in Japan's printing industry have obtained ISO9000 series (quality) and ISO14000 series (environment) certification. More companies are actively seeking to obtain ISO certification. - Excerpt from