Describe your company?
Established in 1990, Kadam Digital Transprints is a Pune-based printing house that offers integrated services ranging from pre-press, print to post-press under one roof. We provide digital, offset as well as CTP, digital colour photo lab and a variety of binding and packaging solutions.

When and why did you choose this particular machine?
We invested in the machine in July 2016. We opted for PUR to cater to the needs of the customers who nowadays print mostly on art paper, texture paper, metallic paper, non-tearable paper, etc. Also, PUR offers advantages over the traditional EVA adhesives. For example, when inks, coatings or digital print toners are present in the spine area these can compromise the strength of traditional hotmelt binding, whereas PUR is resistant to this.

What does the machine do?
The Morgana Digibook 450 PUR, the top-end model, is a single clamp perfect binding machine using PUR (Polyurethane Reactive) glue. We use the machine for binding books with either soft or hard cover.

Did you look at any other similar machine?
Yes, we did look at some options from Welbound, Horizon, C P Bourg, JMD, among others.

Why did you make the purchase?
The deal clincher for the purchase was the precise quality output which it produced and also the patented hermetically sealed PUR application system. It offers numerous advantages and is equipped with automatic glue cut-off and automatic cleaning and sealing of the glue head.

What features of the machine do you particularly like?
The closed glue system was one of the important features. Apart from that, the speed of the machine, automatically adjustable cover feeding along with scoring, paper chip extractor, auto glue head cleaning were some of the attractive features.

Is there anything you wish it had that it doesn’t?
I think the auto jogger, where the book block would be automatically jogged and then fed to the machine after removing the air in between the pages would have been a useful addition. This would have resulted in having a semi-automatic feeding.

How fast is it?
The quoted speed of the machine considering ideal factors is up to 450 books per hour. But we have been able to achieve a practical speed of around 350 books per hour.

How much time or money has it saved?
It definitely saves a lot of time as steps like creasing/scoring, etc is done online ensuring a better throughput and in turn, saves money.

Would you say that it offers value for money?
Yes, it does offer value for money for printers and customers who expect quality and precision in their jobs.

What about the pre- and after-sales service?
The pre- and post-sales for Morgana is taken care by Malhotra Graphics who has given excellent support while making the purchase decision as well as after the installation of the machine. They have a set of trained engineers to take care of the technical support too.

Were there any difficulties experienced during the installation or after?
The installation process was quite smooth and since this was the first machine to be installed in India, engineers from its headquarters were here to supervise the installation process.

Who do you think is the machine right for?
The machine is suitable for the digital as well as offset printers who print and bind on a variety of stocks. It is especially ideal for digital print houses where wastages are a very important factor. Today with this machine I can bind a single copy of a book without any wastage.

Under what circumstances would you invest in another such machine?
As we grow and if we find a bottleneck in our perfect binding operations, that will be the time to invest in another machine.