Professional Resources

What products and services does your company provide?
Rapid Bind offers a complete range of finishing and binding services that allow us to meet the Pacific Northwest’s varied post press needs. Our services fall into three main categories, which are detailed below.

• Binding Services - Mechanical binding (including Wire-O® binding, spiral binding and automated punching), booklet binding, saddle stitching, folding, index tabbing, and collating.
• Finishing Solutions - Attaching, die cutting, media packaging, gluing and remoistenable gluing, and cutting.
• Other Value-added Services - Inkjet imaging, fulfillment, round cornering, Kleenstik™, shrink wrapping, and drilling.

What are some of the projects that your company has undertaken recently?
There’s no “typical” project at Rapid Bind, especially when it comes to run size. Recently, we attached nearly 1mm labels to phone book covers. That same week, we punched and mechanically-bound only seven digitally-printed books for a nearby digital printer.

Although our high-speed equipment is capable of handling high volume jobs, we're equally suited to serving the needs of digital printers and everyone in-between. We enjoy the challenge and variety inherent in handling a complete spectrum of run sizes. Our flexibility has long been one of our signature calling-cards as a post press business.

How many years have you been in the industry?
Rapid Bind has been serving the post press needs of the Pacific Northwest for 34 years. Our company began in 1977 with only two people and a few pieces of used bindery equipment in 1,500 square feet of rented space. Today Rapid Bind has more than 25 employees, operates two shifts and utilizes 34,000 square feet of clean, efficiently organized space in Portland, Oregon.

Name the most pressing challenge or issue you are currently facing.
Faced with the same day-to-day unpredictability as many post press companies, we sometimes find balancing our big-picture workflow to be a challenge. We’ve responded by searching various print niches for new business that will help plug production gaps during these slower periods.

One market of interest to us is the growing digital sector. We anticipate continuing to carve out a strategic niche in this market in years to come. Our flexibility makes us a good fit for the short runs and quick turnaround times typical of digital work, and we’ve forged many strong relationships with digital printers so far.

Another challenge we face is how to continually add value for our customers. Rapid Bind is committed to upgrading our capabilities as necessary in response to customer or market needs. A few years ago, for example, we added an inkjet imaging solution, which has allowed us to streamline the finishing-through-mailing process for many of our customers. Our goal is to continually find new ways to save printers time, money and hassle – whether by adding a new service or simply offering helpful layout and planning advice.

Tell us about a recent success you or your company has achieved?
Recently, a label attaching job arrived in our shop, the specifications of which did not match what was expected. Technically, the piece was not even compatible with our attaching equipment, but our operator figured out a way to produce it. We completed the project on time and according to the new specifications, and the client avoided having to reprint more than 500K labels.

At Rapid Bind, we pride ourselves on our resourcefulness and ability to problem-solve for the advantage of our printing partners. In this instance, our willingness to “think outside the book” (pardon the finishing pun) ended up saving our client time and money.

What resources do you utilize to help you achieve business goals?
Two important resources come to mind:

1. Investing in an outside marketing resource has been critical to our company’s continued success. Rapid Bind’s integrated marketing program – including our recently-revamped website – helps ensure that our name and services stay on the minds and tongues of current and potential customers.
2. Ultimately, though, our employees are the most valuable resource we have. We consider our operations and customer service personnel to be among the best in the Pacific Northwest. Rapid Bind’s continued success depends on each of our employee’s ability to solve problems, provide friendly and helpful service and get our customer’s projects out on time and on budget.

What is your view of the industry?
This may be a challenging time for post press and printing companies, but we refuse to stand around and watch the clouds gather. As mentioned, we believe there are good opportunities for finishing companies in various digital sectors. We anticipate the digital market – as well as the percentage of our business that’s digital only – to grow in coming years.

In our opinion, identifying and meeting the challenges of these digital and quick-print markets – shorter runs, quicker expected turnarounds, reduced page counts – will be important to the continued success of post press companies. It’s up to post press companies to carve out new value for themselves in these and other opportune markets while holding onto as much share in traditional print markets as possible.

What is the most common error that customers make when they submit a job?
Occasionally jobs will arrive in our shop that lack samples, complete instructions, or other vital information. All of these things help us fully understand the project and consequently anticipate and solve problems before going to production.

Our philosophy is that good communication between post press companies and their printing partners is strongly correlated with a job’s success. Simply communicating every project detail to the finisher ahead of time can lead to a better finished product.

Do you have any online resources or tips for graphic arts professionals? 
Yes. For the past nine years, Rapid Bind has offered its customers, prospects and any interested graphic arts professionals useful information they can use to do their job better, in the form of a monthly “Helpful Tip” email.

We invite those interested in Rapid Bind’s helpful information to visit any of the links below:

Subscribe to Rapid Bind’s “Helpful Tips” newsletter: http://rapidbind.com/subscribe.html

Read past issues of “Helpful Tips”: http://rapidbind.com/helpful-tips.html

Read helpful articles authored by Rapid Bind: http://rapidbind.com/published-articles.html

About Rapid Bind
Rapid Bind is a leading trade binding and finishing company serving the Pacific Northwestern graphic arts community since 1977. Rapid Bind's extensive post press services include folding, mechanical binding, remoistenable and seam gluing, saddle stitching, die cutting, inkjet imaging, attaching, wafer sealing, index tabbing and much more. To learn more about Rapid Bind, please contact Chris Garvey, Sue Hein or Russ Haines at (800) 372-8715 or visit www.rapidbind.com