Inserting Can Help You Add Value

LIKE ANY city, San Antonio sends out a lot of mail to residents. Before last October, though, mailings that required a large amount of folding and inserting were essentially impossible for the city's four-employee in-plant to handle.

"We didn't have the manpower to fold 50,000 sheets of paper and then insert it into envelopes," explains Guillermo Castoreno, Central Services manager for the city. "We would tell them that we couldn't do that for them." The customers would then have to assemble their own staffs for an envelope-stuffing party.

That all changed last fall when the four-employee in-plant added a Pitney Bowes DI 950 Fastpac folder/inserter. Now, inserting letters, return postcards, maps, brochures and countless other items into envelopes is a snap. What's more, this new service is helping Castoreno's in-plant move closer to becoming a one-stop shop, where customers can drop off a file and have it printed, folded, inserted, addressed and mailed.

"Whenever we do these projects, it kind of helps establish the value that we offer the city," Castoreno says.

All around the country, in-plants are looking for new ways to demonstrate their value. Inserting machines are just one of the solutions they've found to help them get printed projects out the door, while making life easier for their customers.

Out in Hemet, Calif., the Hemet Unified School District's in-plant also found this out when it replaced its aging Secap inserter with a new Hasler PS140 last September.

"If somebody brought in a letter that they wanted in the mail today, we could have that letter folded, in an envelope and sealed within an hour. Easily," proclaims Reprographics manager Karl Melzer—even if there were 900 of those letters.

"Nowadays," adds Castoreno, "you're trying to show as much value as possible as an in-plant, and I think this type of equipment just gives you a lot more flexibility to do more than you could before. It makes you more credible and more of an asset to your organization."

What's Available?

Here are just a few of the inserting machines on the market for in-plants:

The Böwe Bell + Howell BBH 150 inserting system operates at speeds up to 16,000 letter envelopes and 10,000 flats per hour. It handles a range of products with availability of different feeding technologies. It features easy-to-use setup enhancements such as tool-free adjustments, and uses industry-standard control electronics, motor drives, motors and sensors. The BBH 150 is ideal for self-service environments. —www.bowebellhowell.com

The autoSET XT modular, high-performance inserting system, from GBR Systems, operates up to 22,000 inserts per hour. It offers continuous form and cut-sheet processing in the same feeding system. Even thin materials can be handled. A central touchscreen display serves as an interactive operator interface. The envelope loader is easily accessible and can be loaded with 2,500 to 3,000 envelopes. —www.gbr.com

Hasler's PS140 folding and inserting machine is for mid-volume users. With processing speeds of up to 4,500 filled envelopes per hour, the PS140 can be configured for almost any application, from a single document, up to a sophisticated multi-station installation. The IMOS operating system is a touchscreen, Windows-based interface. There is no limit to how many applications can be stored in the memory. There is no need to stop the mail process for reloading of the hoppers. The PS140 has OMR and barcode capability. The high capacity insert feeder holds up to 300 mail pieces. Hoppers may be loaded during running. —www.haslerinc.com

The Neopost DS-100 accommodates a range of envelope sizes and address locations (i.e., top, middle and bottom), and can handle a document packet thickness of 1⁄4˝. It boasts high-capacity feeders, fast accumulation and on-the-fly envelope loading, as well as easy-to-load trays and an intuitive paper path. The DS-100 is touch-programmable to automatically adjust system setup for up to 20 regular jobs. —www.neopost.com

The Pitney Bowes DI950 Fastpac Inserting System will process up to 5,400 pieces per hour or 120,000 pieces per month. It features a dedicated, high-capacity envelope feeder that loads on the fly and holds up to 500 envelopes. It supports a range of envelope sizes, including small envelopes (from 6¾˝ to #11) and flats (10½x13˝). A tower feeder will hold up to four interchangeable feeders. The system features automatic setup for up to 20 stored jobs. —www.pb.com

Spiral Binding Co. offers the tabletop FD6302 inserter in two models. The FD 6302-Standard 3 comes with three standard automatically adjusting feed stations. The FD 6302-Special 3 has two standard feeders and one special feeder that can be manually adjusted for glossy and thicker paper stock. The 6302 Series offers a low-noise level and small footprint for the office environment. It handles up to 3,500 pieces per hour, with a monthly duty cycle of 40,000. The AutoSet feature automatically sets paper length, thickness, fold type and envelope size. —www.spiralbinding.com

Standard Finishing Systems' KAS Mailmaster 465HS handles #10 to 10x13˝ envelopes, with a maximum thickness of 1⁄2˝. It inserts at speeds up to 6,000 envelopes per hour. Insert stations can handle a variety of material including single sheets, cards, reply envelopes and booklets. All feeders are top load/bottom feed, so they can be continuously loaded without stopping production. Optical scanning for document security is also available. —www.sdmc.com

Vijuk Equipment offers the Vijuk-G&K PA21/4 prefolded leaflet inserting system. It can be installed onto cartoning machinery, driven by its chain or toothed belt, to insert thick prefolded leaflets 2mm to 8mm thick directly into cartons. Electronically controlled ejector transfers the leaflets—up to 400 leaflets per minute, depending on paper weight and type of fold. —www.vijukequip.com IPG