Armenian printer invests in a Made in India Bindwel

In what is good news for the brand Made in India, one of the largest and oldest printing houses in Armenia, Tigran Mets which publishes over 90% of the republic's newspapers has opted for a three-knife trimmer from Bindwel. The team at Bengaluru-based Bindwel is overjoyed because Tigran Mets customers include, UN Office, the Red Cross and other international organisations.

The publishing house has a much revered history. After the Sovietisation of Armenia in the early 1920s, the newspaper Soviet Armenia was published by the Central Committee of Armenia, and thus Tigran Mets came into existence.

In 2023, Tigran installed the Freedom 4.5K to augment their perfect binding capabilities, as books were produced using Muller Martini Panda. The books were trimmed using Perfecta SDY2 and Heidelberg Trimtec, so far. As a part of continuous improvement of quality, the Tigran management decided to invest in a new off-line three-knife trimmer.

The technical team from Tigran, led by their general manager, Igit Mkrchyan, evaluated trimmers made in China during the All in Print 2023 exhibition in Shanghai. Later in 2024, the team arrived at the Bindwel Bengaluru factory to look at the manufacturing process of the Trimit 30C.

Team Tigran and Bindwel at Bengaluru

Igit Mkrchyan said, "Despite the investment cost being higher, we preferred Bindwel as we have a very good experience of buying a machine from them in the past." He added,  "Also we found the manufacturing process to be almost like the European companies which we had visited in the past. As far as three-knife trimmers are concerned the quality of trimming and safety are of paramount importance. In China we could not see how these machines were being built plus we were also not happy with the features and upgradeability."

Mkrchyan said, "Though we are buying the Bindwel Trimit as an offline trimmer, the company has assured us that we can connect it inline with the binder any time in the future."

“We are readying for the Trimit 30C to be shipped to Armenia during the next week”, said Mayur Bharate who heads the exports department for Bindwel. “In the last two years, we have exported Trimit 30C to countries like Tanzania, Morocco, Angola, Ghana, Kenya and so on." When prodded as to what he attributes this to, Mayur Bharate said, "Customers are realising that there is merit in going in for brand new three knife trimmers, as they come in with more features and increased safety. And we provide the option of upgradeability to in-line trimming which is not currently available for any of the used European, Japanese or new Chinese machines."

Meanwhile Kai Buentemeyer, the director of Bindwel, spoke to PrintWeek from Germany: “The Trimit 30C will be installed in Tigran before Drupa 2024 kicks off." He said, " In Drupa we will be demonstrating a new variant of this trimmer, as a part of our Bindline inline binding system. We will reveal more details soon, but I can say with confidence that this concept of three knife trimming will redefine lean manufacturing in book printing."

Buentemeyer's message for the book binding fraternity, "We hope to fulfill a large part of the global requirement for robust, consistent and safe solutions for three knife trimming in the coming days." Buentemeyer has decades of experience as the CEO of Kolbus and chairman of VDMA, the German machinery manufacturer’s association.