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.