CASE STUDY: Wilco Invests in Four MBO Monza Folding Systems

Wilco is the largest book printing firm in the Netherlands, and has invested in four MBO Monza folding systems at Wifac. Each Monza folding system is comprised by a K8RS combination folding machine and an A10 log stacker delivery system. Each of these configurations can processes more than 14,000 sheets gross to 32-side signatures per hour.

Wilco produces more than nine billion book pages per year. These are processed into almost 50 million books that are printed at Ten Brink Offset in Meppel, Koninklijke W?hrmann in Zutphen and Wilco in Amersfoort. With this book volume, it is not just the graphical quality that needs to be perfect, but the speed of the machines is just as important in achieving these figures. To be able to maintain the speed of the offset printing presses, Wilco invested in no fewer than four MBO K8RS combi folding machines at Wifac. The speed for processing 32-pagers is standardised at these firms.

Wilco had been searching for folding machines able to achieve a very high gross speed of 14,000 sheets per hour. MBO provided the solution with its Monza folding systems. Wilco and Wifac installed a prototype of the world's first A10 log stacker delivery systems in Amersfoort. Following installation, Wilco, with support from Wifac and MBO, they were able to start improving and fine-tuning the system.

The prerequisite for the investment was that each of the machines could be operated by a single operator. This requirement was met, and the operator can now concentrate fully on the infeed of paper pallets, removing the bundled signatures and checking the end product. A further condition was that paper grades such as book printing paper could be processed without issues. Following comprehensive tests, it became clear that the Monza would meet all of Wilco's requirements. Three Monza folding systems are currently fully operational. The fourth system is currently being installed.

The original article was published in Dutch in the "Wifacts" customer magazine from our partner Wifac in July 2017