GB2275225A - A multi-batch book production process. - Google Patents
A multi-batch book production process. Download PDFInfo
- Publication number
- GB2275225A GB2275225A GB9308378A GB9308378A GB2275225A GB 2275225 A GB2275225 A GB 2275225A GB 9308378 A GB9308378 A GB 9308378A GB 9308378 A GB9308378 A GB 9308378A GB 2275225 A GB2275225 A GB 2275225A
- Authority
- GB
- United Kingdom
- Prior art keywords
- gathering
- sections
- book
- pallet
- batch
- Prior art date
- Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
- Withdrawn
Links
Classifications
-
- B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
- B42—BOOKBINDING; ALBUMS; FILES; SPECIAL PRINTED MATTER
- B42C—BOOKBINDING
- B42C19/00—Multi-step processes for making books
Landscapes
- Making Paper Articles (AREA)
- Collation Of Sheets And Webs (AREA)
Abstract
A book production process 1 involves printing, folding and inspection, and loading onto pallets of sheets for different batch jobs. All available loaded pallets 5 are transferred to a gathering machine 6. However, only gathering stations 40 for the first batch are activated at the gathering machine and when all of these sections have been gathered, stations are de-activated and stations for the second batch are activated and so on. This allows for efficient use of the gathering machine. The section stacks (18, Fig. 2c) are loaded in an interlocking arrangement on the pallets (20) and are subsequently shrink-wrapped (24). Section order and orientation identification marks (52, 53, fig. 5) are printed on the sheets so that immediate visual inspection 30 may be carried out at the end of the gathering machine for a low discard rate. Before application of glue, the spine of the book is roughened using a grinding machine 7. <IMAGE>
Description
"A book Production Process"
The invention relates to a process for the production of a printed book.
Such a process comprises the general steps of offset printing sheets, folding the sheets to form sections or signatures, gathering the sections, gluing the sections at the spine, drying the glue and subsequently trimming the other three sides to form a book. Gathering of the sections is usually carried out at a gathering machine such as that described in US Patent Specification No.
4830352 (Portals Engineering Limited). In such a machine, stacks of similar sections are loaded into a hopper from which they are fed by use of a suction head onto a conveyor which is in synchronism with other suction heads so that the section drops onto the next adjacent section in the book. A process involving use of such equipment is described in French Patent Specification No. FR 2548965 (Veb Kombinat Polygraph). In this process, after the sections have been gathered, they may be sewn and gauze material strips glued to the spine.
The invention is directed toward providing a book production process which utilises available equipment more efficiently where there are very high volumes and frequent batch changes. Another object of the invention is to achieve a low reject rate and improved quality, and in particular at the gathering and binding operations.
According to the invention, there is provided a method of producing a printed book, the method comprising the steps of:
carrying out offset printing of sheets at an
offset printing machine, including printing a pair of identification marks for identification of the resultant section, namely, an orientation mark for display at the end of one side of the section, and a section order mark for display intermediate the ends of the section; folding the printed sheets so that the identification marks are visible at a side edge of the section; sorting similar sections together as stacks of sections; loading a pallet with a plurality of section stacks, the pallet having a width less than or equal to the length of a gathering station at a gathering machine used in the process; shrink-wrapping the loaded pallet; repeating the printing, folding, sorting, loading, and shrink-wrapping steps for a second printing batch; transferring loaded pallets of each batch to a gathering machine, each pallet being placed transversely of the machine adjacent an associated gathering station; loading stacks in the hopper of the respective gathering station for each loaded pallet; de-activating all gathering stations, except those for gathering of sections for the first batch by disconnecting the pneumatic supply for suction heads of the stations;
gathering sections for the books of the first
batch and carrying out in-process quality
inspection by visual inspection of the
identification marks;
de-activating all gathering stations except those
for gathering of sections for the second batch and
repeating the gathering operations and quality
inspection operations for the second batch;
applying heated glue to the spine of each sorted
set of sections;
applying the book cover to each spine;
conveying each book on a conveyor for at least 100
seconds for drying of the glue and subsequently
delivering each book to a trimming station;
trimming sides of the book at a trimming station;;
and
carrying out final inspection before dispatch of
the finished book.
In one embodiment, the stacks of sections are loaded on the pallet in an interlocking arrangement before shrinkwrapping.
Preferably, the spine of the book is roughened using a grinding wheel before glue is applied.
In another embodiment, the pallet is sufficiently wide for two rows of stacks mounted in an interlocking arrangement.
The invention will be more clearly understood from the following description of some preferred embodiments thereof, given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
Fig. 1 is a diagrammatic view showing a book production
process of the invention;
Fig. 2a is a perspective view showing a stack of
similar sections or signatures;
Fig. 2b is a perspective view of a pallet used in the
process;
Fig. 2c is a perspective view showing a loaded pallet
used in the process;
Fig. 3a is a diagrammatic plan view showing some of the
process equipment;
Fig. 3b is a diagrammatic front view showing portion
of the equipment in use;
Fig. 4 is a diagrammatic front view showing the
gathering operation for a stack of sections; and
Fig. 5 shows gathered sections being transmitted to a
binding station and one incorrectly gathered set of
sections.
Referring to the drawings, a book production process of the invention is now described. Some of the items of equipment and process steps are illustrated diagrammatically in Fig. 1 and are identified generally by the reference numeral 1. Offset printing is carried out in step 2 and this involves the use of conventional printing machines. In this embodiment there are a number of printing machines of different configurations for printing of different numbers of colours on each side of the printed sheet. In step 3, the printed sheets are folded. For example, there may be 15 pages for each sheet and thus the sheet is folded along fold lines to form a section having fifteen pages. In the process of the invention, an important aspect of the printing operation 2 is that indicating marks are printed along some fold lines so that they are visible when the sheet is folded to form a section.In particular, there are two indication marks for each section, namely, a mark at one end of the section to indicate orientation of the section during the gathering operations, and a second mark intermediate the ends of the section for indicating the number of the section. Referring to Fig. 5, a gathered set of sections 50 is shown in which there are intermediate identification marks 52 which indicate the number of the section by virtue of the location between the ends of the section.
For the sections to be in the correct order, the marks 52 must gradually "move" inwards. For all of the sections to be in the correct orientation, all of the marks 53 must be at the same end. Referring to the set of gathered sections 51, one of the sections is out of order because the orientation mark 53 is at the wrong end, although the intermediate mark is in the correct position. It will thus be appreciated that use of both marks in this particular manner greatly helps in in-process quality inspection. This is particularly true where there are a large number of sections and the intermediate marks 52 extend form one end of the sections to the other and back again in a "V" configuration.
Referring again to Fig. 1, in step 4 of the process the sections are sorted into stacks of similar sections and are loaded onto pallets. Referring now to Fig. 3, a stack 18 of similar sections 19 is shown. In Fig. 2b a pallet 20 for loading of the stacks 18 is shown. The pallet 20 is of elongate rectangular shape in plan view. It comprises three ground-engaging support members 21 running the length of the pallet 20. There is a flat board 22 supported by the members 21 and on top of this a paper lining 23 is placed. The pallet 20 is of sufficient width for supporting two of the stacks 18 when placed lengthways across the pallet. The pallet 20 is long enough to support four stacks of 18 in the longitudinal direction, however, it may indeed be longer, depending on the size of the print job being carried out.An important aspect of construction of the pallet 20 is that its width does not exceed the length of a gathering station of a gathering machine, described below. As shown in Figs. 2c, the stacks 18 are placed on the pallet on an interlocking arrangement and are subsequently shrink-wrapped with plastics film 24. This is an important aspect of the invention because it has been found that by interlocking the stacks 18 in this particular manner and by shrinkwrapping them very little damage is caused to the sections 19 and there is a very low discard rate. While the steps involved in sorting the stacks of signatures and loading them onto a pallet may appear simple it has been found that they have been very effective at reducing the discard rate.
The loaded pallets 5 are shown in Fig. 1 and they are transferred to a gathering machine 6, which is shown in
Figs. 3a, 3b and Fig. 4. as shown in Fig. 3a, the process involves assigning each loaded pallet 5 with a particular station 40 on the gathering machine 6. The relevant pallet 5 is placed transversely of the gathering machine 6 at the relevant station 40. Because the width of the pallet 20 does not exceed the length of the station 40 the pallets 5 may be ordered in a single line as shown in Fig.
3a, there being one pallet per gathering machine station 40. As shown in Fig. 3b this allows an operator to easily access the stacks 18 of the loaded pallet 5 with a minimal amount of handling for transfer onto the relevant hopper at the station 40. It will be appreciated that if the pallets were not constructed in this particular manner and transfer of the pallets did not take place in this manner, then there would be a large amount of handling and it would be necessary for people to walk around behind one row of pallets to gain access to pallets in a second row and there would be more handling and less efficiency in the gathering process. As shown in Fig. 4, gathering at each station 40 involves loading of a stack 18 into a hopper 41 from whence each section 19 is pulled by a suction head 42 onto a rotating drum 43 having a gripping device 44.An L-shaped arm 45 moves in synchronism with the suction head 42 and the rotating drum 43 to ensure that the next section 19 does not drop onto the drum at the wrong time. It, in effect, supports the stack 18 while the lowermost section is being withdrawn. The signature 19 is dropped onto a gathered set of sections such as the set indicated by the numeral 50 in Fig. 4 onto a conveyor 46.
An important aspect of the invention is that the steps 2, 3 and 4 are carried out in succession for different print jobs. The loaded pallets 5 which are transferred to the gathering machine 6 may be for different jobs. The process involves efficient utilisation of the gathering machine 6 by transferring all available pallets for all jobs to the gathering machine 6 up to its maximum capacity. The suction head 42 for all stations other than those to be used for the first print job are de-activated and the gathering machine 6 is then operated in the normal manner. Thus, while there may be loaded pallets for sections from different print jobs at the gathering machine 6 and indeed stacks of sections from different print jobs may be loaded in the hoppers 41 only those sections for the first print job are gathered by the machine 6 in its first run.For the second run, only those suction heads at stations associated with the second batch are activated and so on. Thus, there is a very short change-over time between batches at the gathering machine 6. This is achieved by a combination of the pallets being configured to be directly associated with a particular station, positioning of the pallets, and operation of the relevant suction heads of the gathering machine 6. Because of the manner in which identification marks on the sections are used, an inspector at an inspecting station 30 of the gathering machine 6 may immediately identify faulty operation of the machine 6 in gathering sections for the wrong print job.
The gathered sets of sections 50 are shown in Fig. 5 being transferred dn the conveyor 6 to the grinding machine 7.
This machine has a rotatable grinding wheel which is driven to roughen the spine of the set 46 which is then subsequently glued using a hot glue at the glue machine 8.
At the glue station 8, the cover of the book is applied while the glue is wet and the unfinished book is then transferred in a circuitous route on the drying conveyor system 9 to a trimming station 10. The drying conveyor 9 is shown in Fig. 3a. On the conveyor system 9, the books travel away from the glue station 8 and then drop onto a lower conveyor forming part of the conveyor system 9 where it returns underneath back to the trimming station 10.
The drying time is 105 seconds. The other three sides of the unfinished book are trimmed in a conventional manner at the trimming station 10 and are subsequently inspected at a despatch station 11.
It will be appreciated that the invention provides for a sequence of steps using book production equipment which improves efficiency and production quality in book production.
The invention is not limited to the embodiments hereinbefore described, but may be varied in construction or detail.
Claims (6)
1. A method of producing a printed book, the method
comprising the steps of:
carrying out offset printing of sheets at an
offset printing machine, including printing a pair
of identification marks for identification of the
resultant section, namely, an orientation mark for
display at the end of one side of the section, and
a section order mark for display intermediate the
ends of the section;
folding the printed sheets so that the
identification marks are visible at a side edge of
the section;
sorting similar sections together as stacks of
sections;
loading a pallet with a plurality of section
stacks, the pallet having a width less than or
equal to the length of a gathering station at a
gathering machine used in the process;
shrink-wrapping the loaded pallet;
repeating the printing, folding, sorting, loading,
and shrink-wrapping steps for a second printing
batch;;
transferring loaded pallets of each batch to a
gathering machine, each pallet being placed
transversely of the machine adjacent an associated
gathering station;
loading stacks in the hopper of the respective
gathering station for each loaded pallet;
de-activating all gathering stations, except those
for gathering of sections for the first batch by
disconnecting the pneumatic supply for suction
heads of the stations;
gathering sections for the books of the first
batch and carrying out in-process quality
inspection by visual inspection of the
identification marks;
de-activating all gathering stations except those
for gathering of sections for the second batch and
repeating the gathering operations and quality
inspection operations for the second batch;
applying heated glue to the spine of each sorted
set of sections;
applying the book cover to each spine;;
conveying each book on a conveyor for at least 100
seconds for drying of the glue and subsequently
delivering each book to a trimming station;
trimming sides of the book at a trimming station;
and
carrying out final inspection before dispatch of
the finished book.
2. A process as claimed in claim 1, wherein the
stacks of sections are loaded on the pallet in an
interlocking arrangement before shrink-wrapping.
3. A process as claimed in claims 1 or 2, wherein the
spine of the book is roughened using a grinding
wheel before glue is applied.
4. A process as claimed in any preceding claim,
wherein the pallet is sufficiently wide for two
rows of stacks mounted in an interlocking
arrangement.
5. A process substantially as hereinbefore described,
with reference to and as illustrated in the
accompanying drawings.
6. A book whenever produced by a process as claimed
in any preceding claim.
Applications Claiming Priority (1)
Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
---|---|---|---|
IE930131A IE930131A1 (en) | 1993-02-23 | 1993-02-23 | A book production process |
Publications (2)
Publication Number | Publication Date |
---|---|
GB9308378D0 GB9308378D0 (en) | 1993-06-09 |
GB2275225A true GB2275225A (en) | 1994-08-24 |
Family
ID=11039887
Family Applications (1)
Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
---|---|---|---|
GB9308378A Withdrawn GB2275225A (en) | 1993-02-23 | 1993-04-22 | A multi-batch book production process. |
Country Status (3)
Country | Link |
---|---|
BE (1) | BE1005656A6 (en) |
GB (1) | GB2275225A (en) |
IE (1) | IE930131A1 (en) |
Citations (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
GB2063763A (en) * | 1979-11-02 | 1981-06-10 | Bramall J W | Methods of checking book blocks |
US4789147A (en) * | 1986-04-21 | 1988-12-06 | R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company | System and method for selective assembly and imaging of books |
-
1993
- 1993-02-23 IE IE930131A patent/IE930131A1/en not_active IP Right Cessation
- 1993-04-22 GB GB9308378A patent/GB2275225A/en not_active Withdrawn
- 1993-04-27 BE BE9300421A patent/BE1005656A6/en not_active IP Right Cessation
Patent Citations (2)
Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
---|---|---|---|---|
GB2063763A (en) * | 1979-11-02 | 1981-06-10 | Bramall J W | Methods of checking book blocks |
US4789147A (en) * | 1986-04-21 | 1988-12-06 | R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company | System and method for selective assembly and imaging of books |
Also Published As
Publication number | Publication date |
---|---|
GB9308378D0 (en) | 1993-06-09 |
IE930131A1 (en) | 1994-08-24 |
BE1005656A6 (en) | 1993-12-07 |
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Legal Events
Date | Code | Title | Description |
---|---|---|---|
WAP | Application withdrawn, taken to be withdrawn or refused ** after publication under section 16(1) |