SYSTEM STATUS — OPERATIONAL · REV 07.06.26
SUPPORT 253·872·5707
PLATE 01 / HOMEPAGELAST REV 07·06·26PRODUCTION-GRADETRADE BINDERY · PRINT FINISHING

Quote it. Run it.Learn from it.

JAWS is the operating system for trade binderies and print finishers. AI drafts the estimate, your estimator approves it, the floor runs it — and every finished job makes the next quote smarter. Built and run daily inside a working bindery.

  • 01An RFQ email becomes a priced draft in minutes — deterministic cost model, calibrated on your own quoted history.
  • 02Your estimator keeps the veto. Nothing price-bearing leaves the building without a human.
  • 03Quote becomes ticket becomes run list in one click — no re-keying, and the floor sees it live.
See it on your jobRead the systemNO DECK · YOUR RFQ, PRICED LIVE · 30 MIN
QUOTE · Q-101862● LIVE
CUSTOMER · JLD010DUE 07·18
ROUTING — PERFECT BIND · 146PP + CVR
01
Cut
setup 0.6h
02
Fold
run 3.2h
03
Gather
run 1.8h
04
PUR Bind
run 2.4h
05
Trim 3 sides
run 0.9h
PRICING — 3 OF 7 TIERSMARGIN 29.7%
QtySetupRunMaterialPrice / M
2,500$480.00$780.00$180.00$790.00
5,000$480.00$1,430.00$340.00$640.00
10,000$480.00$2,640.00$650.00$540.00
Extended — 5,000 books$3,200.00
QUOTES INDEXED100,000+
JOBS IN RECORD77,000+
RFQ TO PRICED DRAFTMinutes
RUNNING DAILY ATPuget Bindery · est. 1919
§ 01
The problem

Most shops are still quoting like this.

A legacy MIS from the ’90s, spreadsheets with hidden logic, and pricing that lives in one person. What worked at 20 jobs a week breaks at 50.

FAILURE MODES / OBSERVED
  • 01Pricing lives in one estimator's head — decades of judgment, zero backupRISK
  • 02The same job re-keyed four times: email → quote → ticket → scheduleDRIFT
  • 03Quotes slip when the floor is busy — exactly when they matterTHROUGHPUT
  • 04No record of why a number was quoted — or what the job actually costAUDIT
  • 05New hires take years to price bindery work without supervisionRAMP
WHAT IT COSTS
This breaks under growth.

Quotes get slower. Margins drift. The vanilla-looking job that eats a week of hand work gets quoted vanilla again. The bottleneck stops being the machines — it becomes the estimator.

Years
To train a second estimator
Drifts
Margins under time pressure
The same job gets re-keyed
One
Person holds the logic
§ 02
The system

One loop, five parts.

From the RFQ hitting your inbox to actuals flowing back off the floor. Each part maps to something your shop already does — captured, connected, and learning.

01 · REAL OPERATIONS

Built on the operations your floor actually runs.

Cut, fold, stitch, gather, bind, coat, drill, pack. Every quote is a sequence of real work centers with cost logic tied to your machines — setup separated from run, priced per M, with furnished stock handled the way the trade actually works.

  • Routing from bindery work centers, not abstract work types
  • Setup vs run split per machine; per-M and per-piece pricing
  • Furnished folded, furnished collated, and outwork tracked alongside
FIG. 2.1 — ROUTING / PERFECT BIND · 146PP + CVRQ-101862
01
Cut
0.6h / $54
02
Fold
3.2h / $288
03
Gather
1.8h / $162
04
PUR Bind
2.4h / $264
05
Trim 3 sides
0.9h / $81
TOTAL STEP COST — $849.00 · SETUP SPLIT FROM RUN · LEAD TIME 5 DAYS
02 · JOB CODES

Your product families, captured as codes.

Perfect bind PUR where you fold versus furnished folded. Saddle stitch with or without folding. Hand feed, case work, UV. Job codes carry the routing and the pricing posture, so a quote starts 80 percent done — the 20 that’s left is where judgment matters.

  • Job-code templates, versioned as your shop evolves
  • Finishing ops prefilled per product family
  • Defaults everywhere, overridable on every job
FIG. 2.2 — JOB CODE LIBRARY42 ACTIVE
PB-405
Perfect bind PUR — we fold
5 opsREV 9
PB-415
PUR — furnished folded sigs
4 opsREV 7
SS-200
Saddle stitch w/ folding
3 opsREV 5
HF-430
Hand feed — furnished collated
3 opsREV 4
UV-570
Flood UV — 1 side
2 opsREV 3
CB-700
Case bind — make case, case in
6 opsREV 2
CODES COVER MOST INCOMING RFQS AT THE REFERENCE BINDERY
03 · AI + ENGINE

AI reads the RFQ. The engine prices it. You approve it.

Paste the customer’s email. The parser extracts pages, sizes, signatures, stocks, and quantities — then a deterministic engine prices it from rate tables calibrated against your own quoted history. Anything ambiguous is flagged as a question, never silently guessed.

  • Signature math done for you — 9/16s is 144 pages, every time
  • Seven quantity tiers priced in one pass, live on every change
  • Open questions block the price until a human answers — the estimator keeps the veto
FIG. 2.3 — PRICING TIERS · Q-101862MARGIN TARGET 30%
QtySetupRun hrsMaterialCostPriceMargin
2,500$3102.8$96.25$726.25$1,040.0030.2%
5,000$3104.9$192.50$1,116.50$1,625.0031.3%
10,000$3109.1$385.00$1,910.00$2,830.0032.5%
25,000$31021.4$962.50$4,222.5031.7%
Recalc on changeEvery field live — no macros, no hidden cellsOK
04 · ACTUALS

Know what the job really cost — and requote from it.

Floor time and materials flow back against every job. Contribution versus quote, side by side. The vanilla-looking notebook that eats sixty hours of hand assembly gets remembered — and the next quote knows.

  • Contribution per job from real floor time and materials
  • Underwater work flagged before you quote it again
  • Repeat items carry their own history into the next price
FIG. 2.4 — CONTRIBUTION VS QUOTE / LAST 6 JOBSTARGET 30%
J-601211838.4%
J-601209044.6%
J-601214331.2%
J-504226235.7%
J-601209522.2%
J-601210140.0%
FLAGGED: J-6012095 — RAN 7.8 PTS UNDER TARGET · HAND WORK THE QUOTE NEVER SAW · REQUOTE FROM ACTUALS
05 · THE FLOOR, LIVE

One ticket from quote to shipped.

Promote a quote and the ticket, run list, and department boards fill themselves. The floor clocks time by PIN. Customers check job status on their own link instead of calling. And the exception board catches what every shop loses — the printed ticket that never got scheduled.

  • Run list and department boards — mobile, on the floor
  • Floor time clock: PIN in, hours straight to payroll
  • Customer status portal — one link, no phone tag
FIG. 2.5 — PRODUCTION BOARD / TODAYJUL 2026
Materials in
18
+5 today
covers & guts tracked
Scheduled
26
+8 wk
by sort code & due-out
On the floor
12
6 depts
circled = today’s plan
Shipped today
9
on time
portal updated live
EXCEPTION BOARD — PRINTED-NOT-POSTED 0 · OVERDUE 0 · STALLED 0 · NOTHING IN THE GAP
§ 03
Who it’s for

Built where work gets folded, stitched, and bound.

JAWS grew up inside a working trade bindery, not a demo environment. Signatures, furnished stock, per-M pricing, trade turnaround — the workflows are native. The same kernel is headed for laser and fab shops next.

IMG · PUR BINDER — GATHERING LINEphoto placeholder

Trade Bindery

Perfect bind, saddle stitch, mechanical bind, case work — with furnished-folded and furnished-collated flows priced correctly, not shoehorned into someone else's model.

  • OP·01Perfect bind — PUR and EVA
  • OP·02Saddle stitch, fold, cut
  • OP·03Coil, Wire-O, punch, drill
  • OP·04Case binding and hand work
IMG · UV COATERphoto placeholder

Print Finishing & Coating

Flood and spot UV, lamination, and sheet work priced as press-sheet operations — coverage, sides, and films — the way the work actually runs.

  • OP·01Flood and spot UV coating
  • OP·02Film lamination, 1 and 2 sides
  • OP·03Folding, trimming, round corner
  • OP·04Shrink wrap, carton pack, skids
IMG · PRESS ROOMphoto placeholder

Commercial Print

Printers with in-house finishing: quote the whole job — press through bind — and hand the floor one ticket instead of three systems.

  • OP·01Offset and digital print
  • OP·02In-house finishing routing
  • OP·03Trade work, in and out
  • OP·04Schedule-driven production
§ 04
How it works

Installed with you, not sold to you.

An engineer loads your shop into the system and calibrates it against your own history. No big-bang cutover — the old system just stops being opened. Days and weeks, not quarters.

STEP 01

Ingest

Your quote and job history, customers, and rate structure — loaded and indexed. The reference shop runs on 100,000+ historical quotes.

~ 1 day
STEP 02

Calibrate

The pricing engine is fit to your market position, product family by product family, from jobs you already quoted and won.

~ 1 week
STEP 03

Run parallel

AI drafts, your estimator approves. Side-by-side with the old system until the numbers earn trust — not a day sooner.

Week 2
STEP 04

Close the loop

Tickets, run list, floor boards, time clock. Actuals flow back into pricing. The old system goes quiet on its own.

Month 1
§ 05 · EVALUATE

See your own RFQ priced in this system.

Bring one job you already quoted. We’ll parse the email, price it live, and show you the ticket it becomes — next to your number. You’ll know in 30 minutes.

Format
Working session · not a demo
Duration
30 minutes, by video
What to bring
One recent RFQ you already quoted
Outcome
A priced draft next to your own number
Cost
None