Folding In Profits

So as to better accommodate demand for larger inserts and outserts from many of its pharmaceutical clients, Paterson, N.J.-based Miniature Folding Inc. recently installed a Vijuk-G&K SVA 43/8 35/4 miniature folder.

"Pharmaceutical producers continue to ask printers to provide inserts and outserts that accommodate greater amounts of information in larger, more legible, senior-friendlier type," explains Christopher Taliercio, who heads Miniature Folding. "At some point, you simply run out of space. The only alternative is to go to a larger paper format. It wasn't that long ago that 13½" sheets represented the largest-available width for outsert production. Once again, we're pushing the envelope out even further."

Taliercio says that his company's 16,000-square-foot facility can be running as many as 17 lines at any given time, and that it typically operates in split shifts of 15 hours a day, six days a week. The company currently serves customers all along the East Coast, as well as in the Midwest, Puerto Rico, and Ireland.

Taliercio explains that although Miniature Folding also supports printers serving cosmetics manufacturers, it is known as the biggest outsourcer for miniature insert and outsert folding for the pharmaceutical and healthcare product industries.

Founded just four years ago, Miniature Folding has developed a reputation for keeping abreast of the stringent requirements inherent to pharmaceutical and healthcare product manufacturing.

Each of the bindery's dedicated folding lines is completely enclosed, with care routinely taken to ensure that lines are totally purged before the start-up of the next insert or outsert. Taliercio says that he believes Miniature Folding stands alone as the industry's only provider of miniature folding services that maintains continuous video surveillance of each of its production lines.

According to Taliercio, the new, larger-format Vijuk-G&K machine came just in time to enable Miniature Folding to satisfy a growing number of customer requests for larger outserts. Installed in the spring, the folder was up and running at approximately 7,600 outserts per hour in time to meet the production schedule of one of the company's largest pharmaceutical printing customers.

(For a paper length of 12½", the machine has a throughput rating of up to 18,000 sheets per hour.) It currently is folding down sheets for outserts that start as wide as 16½".

Rated to fold down to as small as half an inch, the SVA 43/8 employs a drum-type pile feeder. Taliercio cites a typical job in which 10x6¾" sheets are folded down to 11/8x11/8" in eight accordion folds before the right-turn-angle outsert attachment performs two more folds. A final knife fold and glue spot complete the operation.

Taliercio states that the SVA 43/8—which features automatic barcode reading, jam detector sensors, and second-sheet detectors—is the only folder capable of producing miniature-folded outserts generated from sheet sizes as large as 17x255/8".

"Some customers call on us to do the more difficult folding jobs that require special equipment and expertise," says Taliercio. "Many depend on us strictly to help them meet their deadlines by handling their overflow finishing work. In either case, turnaround is critical.

"With customers continually asking us to do what seems like impossible production schedules," he continues, "we need machinery that we can depend on. This newest folder is proving to be just as much of a workhorse as the other Vijuk machines in our plant."