Banding solution for a demanding print-finishing setting

 

Reconciling the need for speed with gentle product handling, ATS has developed a customized automated banding solution for installation downstream of a high-performance gang stitcher. The system was designed for a long-established, medium-sized printshop based near Munich.

ATS’s customer, a high-volume catalog and supplement specialist, has launched extensive investments in the areas of sheet and roll offset – and in print finishing, where Heidelberg technology is represented with two new ST 450-series saddlestitchers boasting six and eight feeders, test sample stickers and a new compensating stacker. Taking into account the high degree of automation, short set-up times and high throughput (up to 14,000 cycles per hour, rising to 42,000 cycles per hour in three-up production), ATS was faced with having to insert its stackers downstream of the gang stitchers” and matching the high speed of the Heidelberg system. 

The customer’s criteria
The customer debated the issue of stacking safety long and hard: Electrostatic blocking or banding technology? Banding won through in the end, for two reasons. Firstly, because it works with all types of product – even light or heavy paper. Secondly, because it secures stacks of paper for as long as needed; the stacks can then be delivered directly to the palletizing area. After the decision to go with banding, the printhouse called in ATS-Tanner GmbH, which is headquartered in Bergisch Gladbach. ATS’s banding solution had to meet the following criteria by:
 
• Securing stacks for transportation without slowing the saddlestitching process
• Fully automating the inline bundling of the printed matter downstream of the saddlestitcher
• Working at high speeds (24 cycles per minute)
• Providing accurate print finishing even with three-up production
• Providing optimum stacking quality (four-side alignment)
• Minimizing the need for personnel  



The ATS solution
ATS-Tanner adopted a painstaking engineering approach to solve the complex criteria and based its solution on the fully automated ATS US-2000 TRS-SLM ultrasonic banding machine. Its built-in four-sided centering is unique on the market and ensures unsurpassed stacking quality even for difficult products.

The alignment and banding processes do not damage the paper edges, and high-speed one-, two- or three-up production of diverse paper types is no problem. In its first high-volume test run, a three-up job comprising 4.5 million cycles, the ATS system achieved an hourly throughput of 25,000 cycles. This, combined with the need for minimum personnel input, has resulted in a sharp rise in productivity. Thanks to a software option developed jointly with the customer, the stacks produced by the cross layer can be aligned without banding and transported to, e.g. a foil wrapping machine. 

Positive result
Oliver Pätzold, Managing Director of ATS-Tanner GmbH, is delighted with the outcome: “We have struck a balance between speed, stacking quality and productivity to the customer’s satisfaction – and the fact that this applies to all types of paper is a first.” He is confident that the banding solution developed by ATS with paper or film band can be a viable value-adding alternative to electrostatic blocking for many smaller printhouses. 

ATS Germany anniversary
ATS-Tanner GmbH Banding Systems, headquartered in Bergisch Gladbach near Cologne, is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2008. ATS Germany is part of the internationally active ATS-Tanner Group, the leading system supplier for innovative transport packaging solutions based in Switzerland. 

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