What Is a Collator Operator and How to Become One

By ZipRecruiter Marketplace Research Team

A collator operator maintains and operates the machine used to assemble pages in numerical sequence for printed material. Your duties in this career are to place pages in holding trays, start the machine, and remove assembled pages. You handle assembling the final product, which includes stapling, gluing, folding, and cutting the sheets of paper. Your responsibilities also include performing safety inspections, adjusting the control that regulates the stroke of the paper pusher, assessing speed for the machine according to the size of the sheet, checking for accuracy of the final product, making corrections as needed, and troubleshooting any printing issues. A collator operator typically works in printing and bookbinding.

You do not need traditional educational qualifications to become a collator operator. Employers want applicants with previous experience in an industrial manufacturing or printing environment. Other qualifications include knowledge of collating and label application machines, proficiency in standard and specialized folding, and experience with gluing, perforating, and cutting printed materials. You must have excellent reading comprehension skills to interpret written instructions, as well as basic mathematical skills for reviewing number and sequence of pages and calculating distances, clearances, and fits into the combining machines.