Starline Printing, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has a strong tradition of making technology advances ahead of its competitors, and it has always had a reputation as a high-quality printer. In 2020, the company moved its operation to a new location and took that opportunity to look for a better, more efficient way to operate its bindery. “In our previous location, we had older traditional equipment from the 1980s and 1990s,” says Bill Lang, the company’s president.
“We decided we needed to look at a way to operate better and faster to meet customer demands for shorter runs and reduced cycle time.” Before the move, Starline had 10 machines in its bindery consuming about 20,000 square feet of production space in a labor-intensive operation. Our older stitcher/trimmer, for example, required three to four people to operate,” Lang explains. “And we had to have specialists for each equipment type – folders, stitchers, cutters. We knew there had to be a better way.”