Bindwel bets big on binding with 300th machine

Since 2019, the Bindwel factory has dispatched 300 plus machines of the model to various parts of the world. team Bindwel in Bengaluru celebrated the sale of 300 machines by handing over a BW@2500 to Arun Joshi, the owner of Kalpana Art Printers, Aurangabad. This is the 300th machine to be shipped from the Bengaluru factory, since 2019.

"The good news is, we have met the production target of 12 machines per month. And yet, in 2024, we have a waiting period of 2-3 months for this model," said Anilkumar B Nair, the director-sales for Bindwel. Nair added, "The BW@2500 is the only preferred model of trade binders and textbook publishers/ printers in India, who have requirements of 20,000 books per day and have constraints of space."

"Since we started building this in Bengaluru, year on year we have introduced features that improve efficiency, reduce down time and enhance binding quality. Every component used in the machine has been chosen for the best performance in toughest working conditions. During the textbook printing season, the machine may not even get switched off for months together. We have a great metallurgy team. These are specialists and process engineers who are eensuring the material specification and manufacturing processes," said Viswaprasad Nair, director and COO of Bindwel.

Nair added, "Our experts advised us to opt for a special alloy of steel called EN31 for our guide rails, through which the book clamps move." The EN31 Alloy Steel is a high carbon, chromium containing low alloy steel used for manufacture of high quality bearings. Nair said, "This is an excellent high carbon alloy steel which provides a high level of hardness with compressive strength and abrasion resistance." This explains why the ownership cost of this model is very low. Hardly any spare parts are changed even after continuous usage for years.

When team PrintWeek visited the Bindwel factory one thing we noticed was the tech-competence and tech-skills invested in designing and building a half-size bookbinding line which delivers twice the output. This encourages book printers to re-integrate bookbinding at a much lesser capital burden to amortize. Another thing we noticed was the availability of a built-in MIS software that provides the daily production numbers. This includes details of stoppages etc, modified gluing system that even prevents issues like first page - last page opening, a precise and sharp creasing system, powerful cover nipping that gives the perfect spine, these are some of the defining and differentiating features of the BW@2500.

Anil Nair shared with PrintWeek that "If you were to count as one book clamp as a certain capacity and capability in book production, as we go to press, Bindwel factory has shipped close to one thousand clamps in this financial year, a combination of 1, 3, 6 and 12 clamp perfect binders."