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A publisher of school books has become the first UK company to purchase a Duplo iSaddle SENSHI, a saddle stitcher designed to battle a diminishing pool of finishing expertise in the print industry
Direct-Ed, a publisher of school books, has become the first company in the UK to purchase a Duplo iSaddle SENSHI saddle stitcher.
Founded in 1995 and based in Accrington, Lancashire, Direct-Ed specialises in producing high-volume, personalised school exercise books and educational print materials. Their annual output reaches up to two million books, supplied both directly to schools and through trade channels.
The finishing solution was acquired by Direct-Ed to replace one of its two ageing Müller Martini saddle stitchers, a sheetfed Horizon booklet system, and an older Duplo DBM-5000 booklet system.
The iSaddle SENSHI offers barcode-driven automation and touchscreen controls designed to reduce reliance on skilled operators, combating labour shortages and what Duplo sees as a diminishing pool of finishing expertise.
The machine has been engineered for ease of use, with automated job changes and with operators guided by a PC-based graphical interface.
Speaking of the thinking behind the purchase, Direct-Ed’s managing director, Mark Mugan, says: “The Müllers we had needed two or three highly experienced people to run them. They were hard to change over and you really had to know what you were doing.
“With the SENSHI, our operators picked it up quickly. It’s easy to use, it’s precise, and it’s already running well. With the SENSHI, we can now produce more with less. That is the way of our business – to be more efficient – but you still need good people, and this investment shows ours that we value them and our future.”
Alongside its automation capabilities, Direct-Ed chose the machine to provide faster job turnaround times, allowing the company to better support schools with tight deadlines.
The SENSHI integrates Duplo’s latest saddle stitching technology with high-capacity collating towers and a modular design. The solution is capable of producing up to 5,050 A5 booklets per hour, according to Duplo, and up to 10,100 booklets per hour in 2-up mode, handling thick books of up to 120 pages.
Mugan also highlighted rising overheads in the educational sector as being a reason behind the purchase, adding: “We had a look at a number of manufacturers, but the SENSHI was the clear winner because we needed the throughput – and with budgets being squeezed in schools, we had to find ways to do more with less.”
