Envelope Press Completes Noridan’s Digital Transition
Earlier this year, Noridan Mutual Insurance Document Services made a significant change.
“We eliminated all of our offset applications,” says Doug Weatherly, manager of the 29-employee in-plant, located in Fargo, N.D. This included a Ryobi 3200 and a Heidelberg Speedmaster 52.
“We figured we could do every application on digital printers,” he continues. One of those applications was envelope printing, which the shop had been doing on the Ryobi. To handle the work digitally, the in-plant recently installed an OKI MPS 9650C envelope printer. Producing some 25,000 envelopes a month, the printer has been a big success so far.
“It’s just very easy to use,” remarks Weatherly. Since it feeds from the bottom, envelopes can be loaded while it’s running. It prints color at 36 ppm (and monochrome at 40 ppm), with resolutions of 1,200x600 dpi. Color matching software ensures consistency and accuracy. Weatherly says 60 percent of the envelopes the shop prints are black and white, 30 percent are two color and 10 percent are four color.
Weatherly looked at envelope printers from other vendors, and talked to local users of that equipment, but decided that OKI offered better prices and service.
“So far it’s been rock solid,” he comments.
He acknowledges that getting rid of offset was a big change, but lacking a computer-to-plate device, the shop’s costs were high and turnaround time was less than ideal. Now, with Xerox color and monochrome machines, an HP Edgeline 8050 and this new OKI MPS 9650C envelope printer, the in-plant has been able to lower its rates and stay competitive.
Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 180 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.
