New to the Stitcher world, need help please....

[PJP13]

Hello All,

I am a production manager at a medium shop.  Over the summer our bindery provider went out of business.  We decided to pick up their stitcher at that time to bring all of our saddle stitch projects in-house.

We have a Muller Martini 335 10 pocket stitcher.  The machine itself is in decent condition.

The problem we are having is setup and run times.  I believe it is a combination of being misled about the quickness of setup times by the previous owner, and having a operator that runs slower than I would prefer...

My question is this:
Does anyone have some documentation they would be willing to share as to typical setup times?  Better than that would be some sort of excel calculator for estimating run times....  But any info would be greatly appreciated.  Obviously, I realize that there are countless variable; book size, paper stocks, pocket setups, and any other random thing you can imagine.  I am just looking for general rules of thumb if you have them available and are willing to share..

Thanks for any and all direction you are willing to share!

[born2print]

I may be able to help,
for a general idea, do you run all 10 pockets usually or just 3-5 of them?
Do you generally plan to run 1-on with a 3-knife (trims head, foot and face just before the delivery)
or perhaps run books 2-up with a 4 or 5-knife to split them?
Generaly, what page-count signatures will be common (8, 16, 32?)

[jimking]

Is this info needed to see if the machine and or operator is slow, or for estimating? This Muller Martini 335 seems to be a little dated, however they are very good machines. How much experience does the operator have on this brand of machine?

[impodave]

     I have been the lead operator of a MM Minuteman Saddlestitcher with six pockets and cover feeder for ten years+ now.  The machine does not run nearly everyday, and we are a single shift operation. The top speed on this machine is 8000 per hour.  I typically run it around 4500.
I get the best results from a quality and waste perspective at that speed.  I can run some things faster, like 1 or 2 signature booklets, and them some things have to run slower, like web sigs on newsprint.
     It typically takes me 30-60 minutes to makeready a pass - that can vary extensively depending on how much I have to change the machine around from the job run prior...
     Also keep in mind that the faster you 'feel' it should be run, and depending on how much trim you have, the more one will have to stop just to change out the trash bin.  We use rollaway bins provided by the city, so if you have a 48 page letter-size book that was run on 19x25 and then quarterfolded , you're going to accrue a lot of trim in a hurry.  So, in some cases, for every ten minutes you run, you may be down five just moving the waste out, sometimes more than that.
     When this machine was first installed, my boss kept remarking that the machine would do 8000 per hour, but trying to achieve a high rate of speed continually, in my estimation,  is not worth the misfeeds, jams, and possibly, tearing up the machine and the resulting downtime. Also, you need to have enough bodies to man the stations at higher speeds, which we never have here.
     Now, there are probably machine operators much more skilled than I am, and maybe my attitude seems a little independent, all I can say is that my books look good and I have never had any complaints from clients to date, have never been short on a run, and have had very little downtime due to breakdowns.
     If you feel your operator is too slow, maybe you should look for another... We had another operator, who has since moved on, but when he would run this machine, his product looked like crap and we never knew what the final count was   
     Good luck to you...


     
     
     

[born2print]

Those numbers sound right in line with what I found out last night, basically, our stitcher AVERAGE run speed month-to-month hovers right around 4,000 to 5,000 pieces per hour.

[PJP13]

Yeah, the info every is sharing seems fairly accurate.

We typicall are running at speeds of 3k-5k.  Normal jobs are 2-4 bins.  Typically 8 page forms, sometimes 4's...  We have a 29" presss, so our max is 8pg 8-1/2x11 & 16pg 5-1/2x8-1/2.  We only have 2 knives plus face trim, so we always run 1-up unless trimmming offline...

The machine is a 1998 and in good operating condition.

So if I am hearing everyone correct:
Setup should be 30 minutes minimum
Maybe 5-10 min per additional pocket... (above 1-2 pockets.)
Plus any additional time for varying specs (small book, large book, cover feeding, envelope insert etc. etc.)

All and all these numbers sound about right to me.
I think we were just sold on the fact that more jobs would be running in the 6k-8k range.....

Thanks!

[impodave]

Maybe an experienced operator that's worked in several plants could shed some light on what to do here on B4 Print - the only knowledge I possess is what I've learned working at this one location ... 

Like I said, unless you have adequate help, which I rarely do, attempting to run any faster ultimately results in a lot of starting and stopping... either one person can't keep up with the feeders, or the catcher on the delivery end, at least when dealing with thick work (72 pages and up), has issues keeping up and cartoning the work