Stop and imagine a scene from days gone by: hundreds of busy workers, shoulders hunched, working around the clock in a bustling factory to add the finishing touches – stitches, binding, folding – to the latest printed products... How times have changed.

The speed with which technology has developed has meant that the traditional style of manual finishing is practised by very few people in the UK. Many once well-established hand print finishers have fallen by the wayside, while others have taken on board the latest kit developments, moving more towards automation and relying less and less on people power.

The move to automation is a natural by-product of a constantly evolving sector – finishing has been forced to keep up with the rest of the print process in cutting time to market. Added to this, the shift of post-press in-house for many ‘one-stop shop’ printers means less-skilled post-press staff and so automation is even more key.

Balancing costs
Andy Pike, marketing manager for Duplo, whose latest strapline is ‘automated precision’, claims innovation in machinery has led the way for print finishers. "Duplo’s recent developments in its cutting and creasing range, for example, have enabled the machines to do even more, reducing the need to hand finish," he says. "Hand finishing still happens, but it is declining."

He believes one of the main reasons for this is cost. "It’s an investment decision. Do we invest now in a machine that will save us X amount in the long term, or do we employ hand-finishers at a cost per job?" he asks. "No matter how long a business has been hand finishing, it will always have to pay for the cost of employing people to do so. With machinery, the cost will have been paid off after the first three years, and although a cost will be attributed to the finishing element, this will be pure profit and a business can use this to gain a price advantage over its competitors."

Pike does think there is a future for hand finishing, but he is wary of the pitfalls. "With digital print, the runs have become shorter, but often more complex," he says. "This has in one way leant itself nicely to hand finishing, as the more varied the work, the harder it is to find a machine to do it at all. But the major issue with this is guaranteeing the volume. Unlike machinery, you must pay staff whether they are sitting idle, or working on a job."

Neil Mellors, managing director of the print finishing company Apple Print Finishing, based in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, disagrees. "One of the plus points of hand finishing is that the only cost is the actual labour that is carried out. If you have a machine doing it, then it’s both the cost of the machine and the labour of operating it. Once the machine is paid for, then yes, that’s good, but at the moment, most people aren’t in a position to look at new machinery."

Approximately 25% of Apple Print Finishing’s work is manual, but Mellors is under no illusions about how difficult a market it is to compete in. "We try to offer a full range from automated to hand fulfilment. We cover both ends of the market," he explains. "In this current climate, you can’t refuse any work – you consider everything, whether it’s putting products in a box or threading a string through a satchel. We had to diversify, and now we pride ourselves on doing anything from a single, bespoke book to 50,000 books."

Mellors says price is a key factor in deciding what kinds of finishing work it can produce. "More frequently clients are telling us what they want to pay. We’re caught between a rock and a hard place. You’ve got to try and offer everything, be it manual or automated. I don’t think finishers can afford to be fussy."

Unpredictable market
The Worcestershire-based finishing company, Nimble Fingers is one of a small band of finishers whose work primarily consists of manual jobs. "We employ 15 people and 90% of our jobs are done by hand," says managing director Paul Foster. "Our motto is ‘if it can’t be done by machine, we’ll do it by hand’." It’s a slogan that makes the company stand out from the crowd. However, the unpredictability of such work is challenging.

"It’s a big problem for us as we want to keep doing work by hand," he says. "It’s becoming more difficult though as we’re struggling to find enough work. We find it’s smaller quantity work usually, but it’s all or nothing; there will be nothing for a week, then suddenly we’re working 24 hours a day because a machine somewhere has failed or couldn’t do the work."

Foster says this led the firm to diversify into hand packing, as well as print finishing – something he thinks works in Nimble Fingers’ favour when it comes to competing for jobs.

Hand finishing also offers other advantages when compared with machinery, he says. "One of the big advantages is that it has a personal feel," says Foster. "For example, with mailing work, we can put a postage stamp on it. And with packing, we can do more – a machine can’t put pens and key rings in letters and envelopes."

Scott King, sales director at Service Graphics, the wide-format specialist, says hand finishing is a vital part of their work. "We’re not a traditional printer. What goes hand in hand with our type of wide-format, display and exhibition work is a serious amount of manual finishing and mounting.

"Of course, we have auto-cutters and such, but manual skill is very important. Some work requires a different style of finish, such as mounting on to glass by hand or giving a piece different edges by hand-cutting."

Examples of such work produced by Service Graphics includes point-of-sale pieces for perfume companies, featuring wrapped edges, or long-term use items, such as panels in museums or galleries, which must be durable. "Within wide-format, hand finishing is still a big thing as a lot of the work is bespoke. In essence, people want a particular look as opposed just a square cut. That’s the key – a better look and feel."

Duplo’s Pike agrees: "The more complex a job is, the less likely you are to find a machine capable of doing it. If you can, it’s probably far too expensive to even consider. But it’s a numbers game – and if the volumes are not large enough to justify a machine, the job must be outsourced or finished by hand."

Skill base
The dwindling number of specialist hand finishers could indicate a lack of skilled available workers, but King says training is key. "Our staff are top-end – some have been with us for 35 years. We take on people with little or no experience and train them ourselves. We’ve retrained our operators to do both hand and automated work. It’s about finding a balance."

Nimble Fingers’ Foster agrees: "Occasionally, it’s hard to find staff, but we train them ourselves. We employ our staff on flexible contracts, due to the nature of the work."

In an age in which profit margins are ever decreasing, adding value to printed work is vital, and manually cut or bound work can raise the impact of a run-of-the-mill job. Hand finishing is now a tough and unpredictable business, and one that’s likely to decrease with further developments in automation. However, there will always be a demand for bespoke products that machines cannot handle. And in the current climate, kit investment is not top priority for many print firms, meaning many might just turn to good old-fashioned and reliable people power to get the job done. As Foster says, "people don’t break down, machines do".

CASE STUDY
Nimble Fingers
Nimble Fingers is a print finishing company in Droitwich, Worcestershire, that employs 15 staff. The business offers a range of hand-finished services, including collating, folding, folder-making, taping, breaking out, tipping-on, tabbing, cover-mounting, labeling, belly-banding, inserting, padding, round-corner cutting and more. It started up in 2003 with the aim of providing a hand finishing service to the print trade and was originally founded as a business from home by managing director Paul Foster and his wife. "It was a part-time job for her initially, that she could do from home while looking after the children," Foster says. However, the company grew, and in 2007, it moved into industrial premises. Just last year, it moved again – just 50 yards away – to a larger unit, in order to give it a dedicated production area and larger office space. Despite starting out providing only a hand-finishing service, things have had to change since 2003. "We have had to succumb to some automation," says Foster. "But we’ve bought kit on an ad hoc basis, such as a bundle-strapper because we were getting a lot of magazine work, as well as an automated collator." The company is also considering an enclosing machine. Foster is confident that hand finishing has a future and says his business attracts jobs from the commercial and charity sectors across the UK. He believes working by hand provides a "personal feel" and one of quality. "We try to do things differently. We take jobs that are outside of ‘the norm’."