Porterville, CA – March 21, 2023 — MBO America, a leader in advanced post-press finishing equipment, announces that ProVote Solutions, the largest California-based election printer, has invested in an MBO Rollfed Digital Finishing Line. ProVote is focused on doubling its current business and the MBO investment will be an instrumental component of its growth strategy.

“Our company is growing, and we needed extra capacity. We also wanted to streamline our operations and create a best-in-class production system,” said Paul Mantey, President of ProVote Solutions. “Installing the MBO Rollfed Finishing line helps us accomplish that and sets us up for significant expansion.”

ProVote’s original production was based on sheetfed offset printing and a multi-step sheetfed finishing operation. When a new Screen Truepress Jet inkjet press was installed, its roll-to-sheet configuration was designed to utilize the original, multi-step sheetfed finishing machines. However, the process created bottlenecks that required too much labor and time.

A critical step was to reconfigure the Screen press from roll-to-sheet production to roll-to-roll output, which required adding a nearline rollfed digital finishing line customized to the company’s specifications.

The high-productivity components ProVote chose for their MBO Rollfed Finishing Line include an unwinder, a dynamic perf and score unit, SVC 525 sheeter, and several folding and delivery modules that allow the company to fold in parallel or right angles, run a ballot in both grain directions, and do flat sheet production that takes ballots from the sheeter into a sheet stacking delivery.

MBO America offers a modular approach to finishing with a wide range of world-class options. Modules can be configured in many ways to meet exact product and market needs.

The change has resulted in a huge jump in productivity and efficiency for ProVote. Under its old system sheets had to be manually moved from the press to individual finishing stations in three or four steps; now the roll can be taken straight to the MBO line and it’s done. “We go from raw material to finished product in two touches at high speed, the first to print, the second to finish,” said Mantey.   

The company has eliminated production bottlenecks because the MBO line is able to keep up with the higher speed and output of the Screen inkjet press. The roll-to-roll format of the press also keeps it at maximum productivity without nuisance shutdowns such as sheeter jams or makeready issues to interrupt production.

Additionally, Mantey said capacity rose by 25% without having to buy a new inkjet press or additional bindery equipment, labor costs went down as temp positions were cut to 20 from 50, and the turn time out the door was dramatically reduced.

“We are very happy to be partnered with ProVote Solutions and its group of companies, and look forward to their success,” said Lance Martin, Vice President of Marketing, MBO America. “Printers have to be nimble and quick today. They must reduce turnaround times, lower production costs, and increase efficiency, so it’s important they have equipment that’s equally nimble, efficient, and customizable to meet their needs.”

About ProVote

ProVote Solutions is one of the largest election printers in California, servicing 25 of the 58 counties in the state from production locations in Paso Robles and Porterville. It also serves clients in Nevada and Colorado. The bulk of its work is election ballots, having printed more than 35 million to date, but it also prints vote-by-mail packets which contain an outer envelope, inner envelope, instruction sheets, and information guides. Its parent company, ProDocument Solutions, was founded in 1979 and provides security documents for various private and government entities, and business forms to the print distributor market. provotesolutions.com