Installed in August 2024, the new machine has replaced a 10-year-old Duplo DBM System 3500, the new machine giving Image Evolution a 20% boost to booklet productivity.
“The 700 is just a completely different beast altogether,” said Paul Dale, the company’s production director.
“It’s much more automated, it’s faster, it’s more robust and less prone to jams – in all realms, it’s a much more productive machine. There’s minimal change over from job to job, and we can set up a booklet in two copies and then be on a full production run.”
Key among the DBM-700’s attractions was the option to buy it with square spine unit, which allows Image Evolution to produce stitched books of up to 200 pages with completely flat spines.
“Having that built-in makes a massive difference to productivity, because books literally come out ready to box,” Dale said.
The square spine system mechanically compresses and squares each stitched spine.
“Traditionally, with a saddle-stitched book, when you get over 40 or 44 pages, they tend to get quite springy, and want to pull themselves open. But [the DBM-700] compresses it so the books sit completely flat, regardless of how many pages they have.”
Image Evolution has even impressed Duplo with how it has taken to the new machine.
“It’s a tremendous machine, but what Image Evolution is doing with it staggers my mind,” said Lyle Rainey, Duplo regional sales manager.
“In combination with their HP Indigo technology and soft-touch lamination, they’ve produced some amazing samples for their own sales team. These samples blew us away so we’ve incorporated them into our own sample packs. It’s great when our own customers teach us a thing or two about our own kit.”
Image Evolution, which prints exclusively digitally on its Indigo kit, has been enjoying a resurgence post-pandemic, Dale said.
“We obviously had a dip during Covid, as everybody did, but since then we’ve been going from strength to strength,” he said.
Part of this success is down to the industry-wide trend for shorter runs, Dale added.
“That’s obviously where digital has its niche – but we really are finding that runs are getting more frequent, but with smaller quantities. The on-demand side [of business] is really gaining traction,” he said.
Employing 10 staff, Image Evolution turns over around £1.5m annually.
