Kyoto is a traditional town where you can feel the history of Japan on every corner. A city that is so representative of Japan and is visited by millions of people from all over the world. Fujiwara Book Binding Works Co., Ltd is proud to have been engaged in the bookbinding business in Kyoto for over 70 years. since its establishment in 1950. It currently employs 48 people.
Tomoyuki Fujiwara, president of Fujiwara Book Binding Works Co., Ltd., said, “Even though it is 70 years old in Kyoto, it has a short history. If you look around, there are many 100-year-old companies. Now, we are aiming to become that 100-year-old company. I‘m doing my best.” The company has grown with a wide range of bookbinding and peripheral businesses specializing in textbooks and catalogs ordered from printing companies and publishing companies in the local Kyoto, Shiga, Aichi and Osaka prefectures.
The company has, in recent times expanded to cater for the increasing demands of the local publishing industry, providing various services that contribute to the development of the publishing industry. One of the new services was the introduction of the Heidelberg Versafire digital press, a digital printing machine from Heidelberg. We quickly responded to small-lot, short-delivery work not only from publishing companies but also from other customers with an integrated system of printing and bookbinding. We managed to achieve excellent results as a value-added service that can be provided to customers in addition to the conventional bookbinding service.
In recent times President Fujiwara has observed that many bookbinding companies have been closed before the spread of the new corona infection. He feels that this has increased due to the continuation of the corona virus. With the loss of many other bookbinders we have seen an increase in new customers who have asked us to do their work. Winning all this extra work would have meant an increase in overtime so we had to consider what steps we had to take to cope with this additional business.
In keeping with our desire to expand and be more productive, we realised that just replacing our equipment with similar conventional pallet feeding machines was not going to cope with the increased volume.
During a recent tour of European printers, President Fujiwara saw the Stahlfolder KH 82-P. “I was surprised at the productivity of the Stahlfolder KH 82-P that I had seen, it is not defeated by the productivity of the printing press. The smart innovation of overlapping the sheet increases the productivity to a point that the output enables such speeds, that the folder is no longer a bottleneck in the production process.” He says that only this machine can realize the company‘s strategy, and soon after returning to Japan, he began to consider introducing it with Vice President Mikiaki Fujiwara and his team.
And in fact, Fujiwara Book Binding Works Co., Ltd. introduced 2 new machines, the Stahlfolder KH 82-P (2017) and Stahlfolder KH 82 EOU (2021), within four years.
The Stahlfolder KH 82, was introduced and immediately delivered twice the productivity of the conventional machine, President Fujiwara noted.
Vice President Mikiaki Fujiwara, who is in charge of overall production, said, “the introduction of the new machines has increased productivity and reduced makeready times by more than 30%. I think that the motivation of the operators has definitely increased by using the new equipment”. Of course, the in-house production rate has been improved with a positive side to profits. With the increase in productivity the company has been able to reduce waiting times which creates a tremendous opportunity to accept more work from other customers. By expanding and providing more opportunities for young operators, he says, he is seeing a direction for further revitalization of the company.
The Stahlfolder KH 82 is our best-selling folding machine. It is perfect for many printing and binding companies due to its wide capability of materials, quick preparation time, ease of operation and modular design. With specialized applications, you can expand your business, enter new business areas and add more value as needed.
The Stahlfolder KH 82-P and KH82-P folding machines are specially designed to meet the requirements of industrial signature production.
