Mosca Bundler Survives Flood, Keeps Strapping Five Years Later
“Best machine in the plant!” says Jim ‘Murph’ Murphy, mail room manager at Independent Graphics, talking about his eight-year old Mosca ROMP-4 walk-up bundler. Murph has seen all sorts of equipment in his 10+ years of managing the mail room at his Pennsylvania facility but nothing surprised him more than the durability of the ROMP-4 following a soaking from Tropical Storm Lee in September, 2011.
Independent Graphics is a family owned commercial printer founded in 1980. From its start as an in-house plant specializing in single color work, the company has matured into a 30 employee organization running three shifts and supplying full-color offset and digital products to a wide customer base, including the local RailRiders, the Yankees’ Triple-A Team. The company has a full pre-press department including Agfa workflow systems; and a full bindery and mailroom that folds, stitches, sorts and prepares mail trays and tubs destined for the U.S. Postal Service.
Five years after the flood, we caught up with Lou Ciampi, Jr., son of the company founder in their new facility located out of the flood plain in West Wyoming, PA, who reminisced about the flood of 2011 and its aftermath. Originally located on River Road in Pittston, PA the company experienced millions of dollars in losses when the Susquehanna River overflowed its banks and flooded several communities in northeastern Pennsylvania.
The Susquehanna flows through New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland into the Chesapeake Bay. The 464 mile long river is the longest river on the American east coast and is formed from two branches – North and West which come together about 75 miles west of Pittston. Heavy rainfall attributed to Tropical Storm Lee resulted in historic flooding of the Susquehanna around the City of Pittston and displaced 100,000 in nearby areas not protected by levees.
The flood caused an estimated damage total of $1.6 billion, with Independent Graphics one of its casualties. To their dismay, the Ciampi’s found their facility filled with six feet of muddy river water, a disaster for a firm that relies on humidity controlled operating conditions. One of the few things to endure was a Mosca model ROMP-4 bundler the company purchased used in 2009.
According to Murph, who pointed out tiny vestiges of mud which remain to this day on internal grooves in the machine, in April of 2012 a 1.5 hour service call by an EAM-Mosca technician who cleaned and lubed grippers, cleared the strap path and track, and checked the electrical functions was all that was needed to get the system up and running again. The ROMP-4 still consistently performs its daily duties strapping a hundred mail trays and bundles of printed materials today, four years later.
Another tabletop strapping unit in the bindery isn’t looked upon so favorably. Muph says, “Mosca machines just come through – apparently even floods. Great machines.”
The ROMP-4 walk-up model still being used by Independent Graphics was updated by Mosca with the improved ROMP-5 in 2007. Another upgrade, the ROMP-6 Series, was introduced in 2014, which features the Standard-6-Pathway technology which the company states, ‘takes system performance to previously unattainable levels’. The models can be used for postal banding, carton closing, securing bundles and for a variety of end-use packaging applications.
The new and improved walk-up banders feature a fully enclosed strap track for best strap feed reliability, 180 degree pivoting control panel for machine operation from front and back, and wear-free DC direct-drive technology. Production rates of up to 52 cycles per minute can be achieved depending upon operator. Options include pneumatic press, photo-eye start, and more. A number of arch sizes are available to meet customer needs.
EAM-Mosca Corporation provides high-performance strapping system solutions to a variety of industries, including food, graphic arts, mailing, fulfillment, logistics, corrugated, wood, and other industrial or consumer goods. We combine innovative equipment with strapping materials manufactured to maximize machine performance and customer support programs that help our customers to meet their performance and productivity goals.
To learn more about any of EAM-Mosca’s other productivity enhancing strapping systems, please call us at 800-456-3420, or email us at info@eammosca.com. You can also connect with EAM-Mosca on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/EAMMoscaCorp), Twitter (www.twitter.com/EAMMoscaCorp), and Facebook and LinkedIn via the links above.