Obviously, such rapid growth has been accompanied by expansion in its equipment and space requirements. On 1 January 2010 the company moved into new premises in Cologne and invested some €20 million in buildings, prepress, presses and postpress technology as part of the project, expanding the production area from 4,000 m2 to 10,500 m2. As mentioned previously, growth is ongoing and the latest investment, a Heidelberg Eurobind Pro perfect binder, has expanded the company's perfect binding capacity in one go by 2,000% compared with the previous solution. The joint managing directors, father Günter Mazur and son Heiko, made this investment in response to increased customer demand. The Internet-based business arriving via the company's own portal, Druckdiscount24.de, is now responsible for around 85% of the sales and this has led to an increase in demand for high quality perfect binding. Heiko Mazur, "For us the Internet business is not some anonymous affair. Unlike many others who are active in this segment, the customers know that with us there are still people behind the technology. We check every job before printing and notify the customer when its data contains errors. This allows it to make corrections and save money. As a result, no only do we deliver high quality we also have highly satisfied customers."

Häuser KG has had the www.druckdiscount24.de URL since 2003 and has been operating an online portal under the same name, and it is this that has contributed so strongly to the growth. Günter Mazur explains, "Since we launched the Druckdiscount24.de brand we have been able to expand in the areas of flyers, brochures and business stationery. Compared with many other online printers we emphasize personal support for the customer, comprehensive checking of the data and thorough quality control." Consequently the company has invested in the very latest production technologies.

Outstanding examples of this investment are the three Heidelberg XL 105-8-P presses with simultaneous plate changing and Inpress Control, two Heidelberg Anicolor SM 52-4 presses, one with a coater, and two Fuji T 9800 HS CtP systems, which, with an output of 40 plates/hour, are able to steadily and reliably keep up the presses' demand for up to 20,000 m2 of plates per month.

There is also an extensive array of finishing machinery in order to handle the necessary work quickly and reliably. The joint managing directors place a premium on production reliability. In the case of most machines there are two identical or nearly identical models so that a substitute machine is always on hand to provide instant breakdown cover. Examples of this doubling up for production security include two Polar 137 XT high speed cutters, two Horizon folders, two Heidelberg Stahl KH 78 KTLs and three Horizon Stitchliner 5500 and 6000 saddle-stitchers with folding or gathering units. There is also a Horizon Castor 530 SF polywrapper and a Steinemann Colibri UV coater.

However, the latest addition to the finishing arsenal is the Heidelberg Eurobind Pro perfect binder. Capable of 6,000 cycles/hour, the system was installed in March 2011 and makes the company fully self-sufficient for perfect binding. Heiko Mazur, "Online customers, in particular, who place orders via our Internet portal, expect short production turn-rounds. The aim therefore was to bring such production times in line with the requirements of our customers, that is to constantly shorten the throughput time for a job. Today we sometimes do not know at noon what we will be printing at 4 in the afternoon and in most cases, especially with smaller jobs, the customers want their product within a day. We could not always guarantee this with external service providers and so in our investments we have increasingly pursued the goal of becoming self-sufficient. The Eurobind Pro means that we have now achieved this in the case of perfect binding-regardless of whether long or short runs are involved. The speed and reliability of the system brings us a further market advantage. Our customers, which include around 1,000 printers, value this because we are now able to offer new and faster services."

The decision to invest in a new, high performance perfect binder was an obvious one. After a detailed market analysis and some trials, both managing directors decided in favour of the Heidelberg Eurobind Pro system with a 16 station feeder/gathering unit, a cover feeder, a 23 clamp perfect binder, a chill tower with a 25 metre cooling line and a Heidelberg Eurotrim Pro three knife trimmer. When looked at in detail, what initially strikes one as ordinary turns out to have some unusual features that reflect the company's desire for independence and comprehensive coverage. For example, an image and bar code inspection system has been fitted to each of the gathering stations. After three spine preparation stations there is a hotmelt roller gluing unit, which, at present, is mostly just used for pre-gathering.

The actual gluing is carried out by a PUR nozzle system, which is followed by a system for monitoring the adhesive application. The latter is laser-based and checks that the adhesive has been applied and if the thickness of the adhesive layer is right. If the system, which is capable of 100% monitoring, detects faults that lie outside an adjustable margin of error production is stopped. Side gluing for covers is also carried out by a nozzle system. Heiko Mazur, "After a product has run through the two pressing stations both binding and glued cover display strong adhesion and are durable and pull resistant."

After three months of daily operation, Häuser KG has already bound over 300,000 books. Here too there are some unusual points. Günter Mazur, "Our runs usually lie between 250 and 2,500 copies. It is not uncommon for us to have to deal with even shorter runs. In order to be able to produce 100 copies viably we need a system with short change-over times and that is simple and intuitive to operate. With so many individual jobs every day product quality has to meet our stringent standards from the first to the last copy. In operation the Heidelberg Eurobind Pro has so far caused us no problems. Installation and set up of the machine proceeded very rapidly and smoothly. In fact, two weeks after delivery of the machine we produced our first saleable quality product. Investing in this machine was absolutely the right thing to do. By way of comparison, in 2008 we bound three jobs a week, today we are producing five to ten per day."

By Michael Scherhag, Deutscher Drucker

Translation: Neil Stratton, Deutscher Drucker