Established in 1997, the exclusive club now known as Goss Pacesetters has just signed its 1405th members.

Set up to provide an incentive for achieving peak performance on the branded saddlestichers, adhesive binding systems and trimmers, the Goss Pacesetter Club admits new members each year as specific targets are met and productivity records continue to be broken. Currently the 'bar' is at 97.6 per cent efficiency, achieved in 2014.

The name comes from the Pacesetter model brand, the much longer history of which dates to Harris Macey and its subsequent acquisition by Heidelberg with Harris Web in 1988, and then by Goss in 2004.

Goss director of commercial sales Tim Van Driessche says these levels of productivity set standards for the whole industry and provide an important benchmark for print purchasers: "They demonstrate excellence in areas other than raw performance, such as operator training, equipment maintenance and efficient workflow.

"Submissions for club membership show us that between 50 and 60 per cent of Pacesetter machines installed in the past ten years are achieving these performance levels."

Among those recently admitted to club are Minnesota multiplatform (heatset and digital) printer Japs Olson, Journal Graphics in Portland, Oregon, and Freeport Press in Ohio.

Japs Olson scored with a Pacesetter 1600 stitcher with GT-16 trimmer it installed last March and rated at 16,000 booklets an hour, twice as fast as the equipment it replaced.

At Journal Graphics, two operators were doing more than 20,300 books per hour within three months of their Pacesetter 2200 being installed.

Top performance of any company using a the 2200 was 21,463 booklets per hour over a 12 hour shift, or 97.6 per cent of total capacity.