This Drupa year of 2024 also marks a significant milestone for the document finishing company Plockmatic Group, which celebrates half-a-century of innovation and success in the post-press market.
Since its formation in Sweden in 1974, Plockmatic has continually evolved and has introduced several ground-breaking technological advancements and solutions. With a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions, Plockmatic has established itself as a leading player in post-press document finishing.
From Small Beginnings
Founder Terje Söderberg acquired a patent for a sorting machine and, together with two partners, began building prototypes in a laundry room! The company soon expanded its range with new products such as staplers, folding machines, and various types of picking machines. The business expanded to larger premises in Essingen – and Plockmatic had arrived.
By 1976 the business had 30 employees and was looking to expand into international markets. Exhibiting at the CeBIT show in Hannover was a crucial milestone for the company, where it connected with competitors, printer suppliers, as well as potential agents and distributors.
Booklet making is our business
Today Plockmatic is best known for its booklet makers. Its first such product was developed in 1985 and was capable of handling up to 20 sheets in both A4 and A3 formats, opening-up a market for organisations needing to produce smaller quantities of booklets.
The collaboration with print engine manufacturers began with Xerox, who took notice of the new booklet maker. A Xerox engineer was sent from Rochester to inspect the Plockmatic company and prepare them to become TQM and TQS approved. The first machine sold was a standalone offline booklet maker, but designed to appear as a Xerox product, with its characteristic grey colour.
By the late 1980’s discussions had begun with Xerox to create the first inline products. Becoming TQM/TQS certified also began to open new opportunities. Plockmatic was contacted by Ricoh, and they were soon followed by several other developers of digital printers. Today, Plockmatic collaborates with most of the leading printer companies operating in the digital print world.
SquareFold technology – the game changer
In 2003 Plockmatic introduced its signature SquareFold Technology in the PL104 SquareFold unit. This gave a stitched booklet the look and feel of a perfect bound document produced with squared spine – a completely new concept in its time. This technology was quickly incorporated into the booklet making range offered by Xerox and is now offered by all the main print engine manufacturers in their inline booklet makers, and across all the offline systems sold under the Morgana brand.
Another key development came with the 35/50 platform, which allowed these SquareFold books to be produced in up to 200-pages with up to 10mm thick booklets to further widen the range of applications produced by digital devices.
Supply chain becomes the core business
As production volumes increased the decision was taken to insource assembly, leading to Plockmatic's own factory in Latvia. Parallel to this move, a supply chain organization was built up with subcontractors in the Baltic region and module assembly in Asia.
In May this year, Plockmatic will move to a new 10,000 square metre purpose-built factory in Riga to allow for further growth in production and sales. The new factory is built entirely according to Plockmatic's specifications, enabling continued efficient processes, with sustainability as a guiding principle in its design.
Continued growth
Plockmatic International’s CEO Jan Marstorp has continued to expand the business, together with Salvatore Grimaldi, who acquired Plockmatic in 2005. Expansion has happened for Plockmatic through the establishment of the company’s own subsidiaries and through the acquisitions of other existing post-press businesses, including UK suppliers Morgana Systems and Watkiss Automation, plus the Italian perfect binder manufacturer KGS. The most recent acquisition of Intec Printing Solutions, based in Poole in the UK, is the Group’s first steps into labelling and packaging finishing solutions.
Plockmatic has had a presence in the North American market since 2006 but established its own sales and support subsidiary in 2016 to better serve its rapidly expanding customer and dealer base in the US and Canada.
Further Investment
At the start of 2024, Accent Equity acquired 60% of the Plockmatic Group to support and strengthen the growth plans over the coming years. With Drupa soon upon us, the company plan to show up to twenty new product developments across the show both on its own booth and with inline solutions for various print engine manufacturers across the show.
Commenting on the 50-year celebrations, Jan Marstorp, CEO, said: “It’s great to be celebrating 50 years in this vibrant industry and to be doing it in such a big way at Drupa with all these fantastic new product launches. I’d like to thank all our staff, customers, dealers, and partners for their continued support of our wide range of products across this industry sector. We’re looking forward to Drupa and are expecting it to be a fabulous event which will give us a great platform for another strong year in 2024.
“The move to our new purpose-built assembly factory in Riga increases our production capacity as we introduce new product lines and new booklet making and feeding solutions to a wider range of digital print engine manufacturers.”
The Plockmatic Group will be at Drupa in Hall 8b – Stand A41, where they will be launching several new products, including the new PowerSquare 7000 range of production booklet makers; the latest in the ubiquitous DigiFold range – the DigiFold Pro Ultra; a completely new range of DigiBook perfect binders; and several new ColorCut digital die cutters from the Intec line-up, including a larger format version of the popular SC6500 digital die cutter, the SC7000Pro XL.
www.plockmatic.com
