In 2021, JPS went from 100 percent toner to cut sheet inkjet. In 2023, JPS Books + Logistics (JPS) took the next step and chose continuous inkjet, installing the Tecnau Revolution 50 Stack 5251 with the Canon ColorStream 3900Z printer.
Businesses have faced many different challenges due to the COVID pandemic. It is no longer business as usual. Product availability and pricing are just a few of the recent obstacles that companies have encountered. JPS Books + Logistics (JPS) is no stranger to these and other issues. Since 1978, JPS has been committed to finding unique solutions to overcome challenges and fulfill its customers’ content creation needs. The founders, Bob Johnson Sr. and his wife, Betty, instilled this mindset in the company. Third generation family member and CEO Hunter Johnson ensures it is still prevalent today even as unforeseen and difficult challenges occur.
As an example, Hunter Johnson stated, ‘We recently changed our name from JPS Graphics to JPS Books + Logistics because it clarifies our core businesses. We not only produce learning materials, but half of our location is dedicated to warehousing and fulfilling orders for end customers. JPS alleviates today’s logistical and production headaches for our clients.’
‘We felt that Canon and Tecnau had a strong partnership. There was a lot of confidence that the two companies were in lockstep and could provide a good end-to-end solution,’ stated Johnson.
JPS Books + Logistics serves educational curriculum publishers and corporate training professionals. They produce student workbooks for K-12 schools, and corporate manuals mainly dealing with safety, regulatory and compliance training. These materials are standard 21.5 x 27.9cm (8.5 x 11”) books that are most commonly soft cover perfect bound or coil bound. The K-12 market has rebounded better from the pandemic than corporate training. The pandemic definitely has had a major impact on the printing market, further amplifying JPS’ two big challenges: uptime and throughput.
The Stack 5251 empowers high-speed colour inkjet printing systems with an efficient cutting/stacking solution, highlighted by the double-cutting Cutter c52 with retractable cut section for quick blade changes and jam clearance. The user-friendly equipment also offers an intuitive, touch-screen display panel that controls the entire line, and common operator adjustments are done externally for easy operation. Intelligent document integrity control automatically recognises non-data or waste sheets and diverts appropriately, while maintaining registration to the first live printed page.
All modules operate in taut web to generate the exceptionally smooth paper flow required for high-speed operation, with dynamic web aligner and adjustable decurler further enhancing smooth reliable web handling for the most demanding papers. ‘With our previous equipment, throughput was 80-140 pages per minute. Our new solution provides throughput closer to 1500 pages per minute, over a 10X increase,’ said Johnson.
JPS’ other big challenge, uptime, was also overcome with the new solution. ‘The equipment goes down less frequently so more pages are coming out more minutes of every hour,’ said Johnson.
In May 2022, JPS implemented the million-page challenge, which was printing one million pages per day. At that time, this seemed to be a lofty goal considering JPS was only printing about 400,000 pages on any given day. ‘Now with the new equipment alone we easily print one million pages per day. Our new record for a single day is 1.6 million pages,’ said Johnson.
In addition to the Revolution 50 Stack 5251, JPS Books + Logistics also purchased the Tecnau TC 1350 RW Dynamic Perforator, which enables smart perforation with a small footprint. The TC 1350 RW provides dynamic vertical perforations integrated on the rewinder. It includes two independent perforation wheels with single or coupled knives and programmable perforation lengths. This critical piece of equipment perforates pages that are often assessments or learning certificates, which are torn out of workbooks.
FELLOWES BESWICK
+27 11 433 2686
paul@beswick.co.za
www.fellowesza.co.za
