Make a date to visit us on Stand E19 at The Print Show in October where we will launch our Perfect Box Solutions range of semi-automated and automated casemaking and boxmaking machines for on-demand production of case bound book covers, slip cases and value-adding high quality boxes including our unique glued-sheet formed box wrapping system.

The range, manufactured by Italian niche application specialist IML Machinery, includes a unique system for the application of glued facing sheets to the formed boxes for consistently accurate and professional wrapping of finished boxes up to 430 x 350 x 120 mm in size, at speeds of up to ten per minute. The smallest size at 60 x 60 x 10 mm is ideal for the jewellery sector. The new range is to be marketed under the ‘Perfect Box Solutions’ brand banner.

For PBS’s Steve Giddins, a noted authority on bindery processes and finishing applications, the initiative represents a decisive opportunity for established trade specialists and commercial printers to add value and differentiate their offering:

“Over recent years we have seen a constant drive by printers to find products and services that will win them work in the more valuable market sectors, so we’ve seen a rise in perfect binding, casebinding, embossing, laminating, foiling and so on. The high quality presentation box is the latest, and perhaps the most impressive, value-add in that sequence and our ‘Perfect Box Solutions’ range brings what used to be a labour-intensive craft process within the sphere of enterprising commercial printers to fill their workflow upstream and boost their bottom line.”

The Perfect Box Solutions range includes equipment for finishing both the board and the cover sheet. Processes include grooving, corner cutting, edge and corner taping for the board, and cutting/trimming, sheet gluing and box wrapping for the cover material. High quality short-run boxes have long been used in special editions of confectionary, perfumes and spirits, but now they are being specified for photobooks, exclusive property development prospectuses, artbooks and similar high-value and luxury products.

Steve Giddins adds:

“This range will also appeal to specialists already operating in the field, to complement their existing methods, and the beauty is that most will already have some of the processes in-house, so it’s just a question of picking and mixing for them to significantly add to the services they are able to offer their customers.”