System for collating and binding signatures to produce customized books or magazines

System for collating and binding signatures to produce customized versions of books or magazines, comprising a conveyer running along a number of workstations, said workstations including at least one number of the following stations:

• a number of feeder stations for feeding one signature to said conveyer to form a collation of signatures,
• a number of printer stations for printing a predetermined text on the upper signature of the collation passing the station on said conveyer,
• a stitching station for binding the collated signatures on the conveyer to obtain a book or magazine,
• a number of checkpoints, one for each of the said stations, for checking the correct functioning of the respective station,
• a reject station downstream of said station for removing defective books or magazines,
• a computer system for receiving data from a source of data relating to the embodiment of each book or magazine to be produced and information relating to the functioning of the various stations and for transferring control messages to said various stations, characterized in that, said computer system comprises
• a number of controllers, one for each of said stations, each controller receiving information from the checkpoint assigned to the same station and outputting commands to the respective station to control the functioning thereof,
• a central processor for receiving the data from said data source and for generating control messages to each of the controllers,
• a communication network to which all controllers as well as the central processor are connected by uniform connecting means to transfer information about the functioning of the various stations from the controllers to the central station,
• whereby during operation of the system each controller is loaded with suitable software enabling the controller to control the functioning of the assigned station independent of the other controllers and whereby the transfer of a message indicating the malfunctioning of one of said stations from the respective controller to the central processor will cause the central processor to send a message to the printer stations, feeder stations and stitching station downstream of the station in which the malfunctioning occurred instructing these stations to stop the further production of the book or magazine influenced by said malfunctioning, to send a message to the reject station to reject said non-completed book or magazine and to send messages to all stations to update the data defining the magazines or books to be produced such that a replacement for the rejected non-completed book or magazine will be produced.