Santa Ana, California
B&Z
Printing prefers Best Osako to Muller Martini
B&Z
Printing, Inc.'s president, Frank Buono (left) and saddle stitcher operator
Martin Guereca with their new Best Osako 368.
Per your request, here's a little background on my purchase of our Best Osako saddle stitcher from you: For starters, we had two stitchers in-house and I felt that one of them was getting past its prime. I decided to replace it with a new stitcher.
I had heard a bit about the Best Osako, so I investigated both it and the Muller Martini. After seeing both, I definitely preferred the Osako. In my opinion, the Best Osako performed as well or better than the Muller, and it unquestionably had a better warranty. When it came time to buy, you answered all of my questions and made the purchase process very straightforward and pleasant.
We do a wide variety of thick and thin books at our shop, in a lot of different sizes, big and small and everything in between. We're a trade printer and get a lot of challenging jobs, often combining different-sized forms into one job.
One of the books we do requires a large warranty card on the outside and a smaller, mail-back card on the inside. It's basically an instruction manual for a consumer product. In combining the forms, the stitcher works very smoothly. We hardly ever get any rejects or misfeeds.
Compared to our older stitchers, the Osako is much, much better - especially the individual pumps on each feeder unit, which do a fantastic job of handling both heavy and lightweight stock. The individual air pumps provide plenty of air and power for each of the feed units, so you're not starving one pocket to supply another that, for example, has something heavier in it.
The cover feeder is incredible! I don't have to pre-fold the sheets any more, and it's got a very useful side guide system that maintains register really well. It does a great job on whatever size signatures I put in it, even very lightweight signatures.
Everybody prefers the Osako's tilt-back feeders. We find them really handy tilting back for a hand-drop operation. There's more room, so we can hand-drop in any spot we want and the form falls squarely in place.
The learning curve to operate the stitcher was very short and simple. Our operators who worked on our other stitchers picked up on everything very quickly and easily, making for a very easy conversion.
As far as support, Best Graphics was great. Dealing with you was a pleasure, Bob. You kept on top of everything. Your installation and training guys came in here promptly, set up the machine and conducted the training sessions very smoothly and professionally. By the time they left, our operators were trained and up and running with the machine.
I definitely would look forward to doing business with you in the future. I may be in the market for a perfect binder soon. I wish you were selling those, too!
Frank Buono, President
B&Z Printing, Inc.
