New iGen4 Cuts Costs at Western & Southern Financial

The two Xerox 8000s at Western & Southern Financial Group’s Cincinnati in-plant were great color printers in their time. But as the quality of digital color improved over the years, the glossy sheen on the 8000s’ output became less desirable by comparison.

“On the blacks you had a real high gloss look to the pieces, so they were not close to offset—and we had some people who were really not liking that too much,” remarks Dan Cowan, Print/Volume Document Production Manager.

So to improve the quality of its brochures, booklets, post cards and color statements, the 23-employee printing and mailing operation recently became one of the first in-plants to install the new Xerox iGen4 digital press. The shop traded in both 8000s and a Xerox 6100, reducing its lease costs in the process.

Cowan feels the quality of the iGen4’s output is even better than that of the iGen3.

“It’s much closer to offset,” he contends.

This is allowing the in-plant to pull low-volume work off its two- and four-color Heidelberg presses and move it onto the iGen4, cutting costs by a third, in Cowan’s estimate. He hopes to use the digital press to change the company’s print-and-store mind-set, and instead print short runs of personalized marketing materials on demand.

The iGen4 was put into service almost immediately after its arrival; during training, a customer asked for 40 full-bleed books in advance of an offset run of 5,000. The iGen4 cranked them out easily.

“They were very happy with it,” reports Cowan.

The shop is using Objectif Lune’s PlanetPress variable data printing software and has already done a number of VDP jobs, Cowan says. The in-plant is about to implement Xerox’s FreeFlow Web-to-print solution as well.

On the back end of the iGen4, the in-plant installed a C.P. Bourg creaser, bookletmaker and square binder.

The iGen4 isn’t the only new thing at this in-plant, recipient of the 2007 Print Management Award from the In-Plant Printing and Mailing Association (IPMA). In March the shop added two Pitney Bowes FPS 12-station inserters, replacing a trio of Pitney Bowes Series 8 inserters that were 12 years old. In June the shop put them to the test when it inserted 400,000 privacy notices.

“In 2008, that took us five weeks to do,” Cowan says. “We did it in three weeks this year.”

The new machines can also insert flats, something the in-plant previously had to do by hand.

Also new is a 25? Tamerica TCC-2700 laminator, which the in-plant added after learning that departments were sending their laminating work outside. The laminator paid for itself in savings after just three and a half months, Cowan says.

The shop is also now using the Enterprise 32 print management system. Cowan praises the estimating feature and says the system is saving the in-plant a lot of time.