This article was first published in the March 2021 issue of Australian Printer, by Trimatt Systems owner and CEO Matt Johnson

Post-press equipment is just as important as any process – in fact, it helps get a finished printed product to the end user in a high-quality finished format. Quality post-press equipment will ensure that waste is reduced and that profitability maintained throughout the job.

Post-press is a specialist process within a printing business. Ignoring the importance of this process inevitably ends in tears, with heavy waste and poor quality finished media as the result. Respecting the post-press process is critical to a successful print job.

Technology has created many areas for the print finisher to capitalise on. These can include process automation to reduce labour and improve quality. An example would be the Camera systems that businesses now deploy on ‘saddle stitchers’ to ensure book section collation is perfect. By using these cameras and software, errors in going to market are eliminated.

Trimatt Systems builds finishing equipment in Melbourne. Our machinery provides solutions to printers for capturing critical data printed on to documents (in areas such as security, membership, financials and others).

We build machines for feeding, gluing and folding, and many of these applications involve integrating a plastic card into a mail piece for distribution. We have built machinery to automate the process of attaching labels to media, and in printing barcodes at high speeds for traceability.

Our solutions are tailored to help printers add value to their printed media. Simple printing today isn’t enough to satisfy the market’s needs and for printers to have a point of difference. Trimatt solutions give printers an edge and added capabilities where margins can be collected in additional finishing tasks.

An area of lucrative play is Trimatt’s solution for gluing, folding and attaching. This machinery helps printers to capture downstream tasks where they’re adding value to existing printed media. We have the popular CardLine 7000 series and FoldLine 9000 range of finishing machines, which have become very popular in Australia for both printers and mailers alike.

We can add inkjet machinery to print variable QR codes for example, or we can add labelling machinery and folding to give printers the ability to finish their products in line with minimal Labour. All these systems are designed by the team at Trimatt in Melbourne.  

Some of the challenges that printers might face is finding a machine that has different capabilities that will suit the unique needs of their business.

Often, we are found building unique machinery to cater for the exact requirements of our client. Through consultation and clearly understanding their requirements, we can create solutions that meet the challenges of each individual printer. This could be the materials that they are operating with, it could be the customers that they have, or the various requirements of their customers. 

Printers can only alleviate their challenges by having a clear understanding of the requirements of their business and the requirements of their customers’ business. Trimatt offers an obligation free consultation process to work with the client to determine the best solution, and we often customise our solutions to meet this objective.

With consumers expecting products quicker, printers deliver on this but also provide quality products by investing in post-press finishing equipment that provide an extremely high degree of versatility and flexibility.

Investing in equipment that has a clear upgrade path to add additional devices in the future – as in, when the requirements of your customers change – is also necessary. I would advise printers to regularly meet with industry experts to understand trends and capabilities within hardware and technology.

In the coming years, post-press will continue to evolve and the needs of printing companies will become more and more specialised. As digital media and the various marketing methods continue, the printer and their finishing capabilities will need to be ever more flexible for them to stay relevant.  

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