Digital Printing-Toner - Cut Sheet (Color)

The judging of the In-Print 2010 contest recently took place at Redlands Community College. Here's a behind-the-scenes look.

THE AIIM/On Demand Conference and Exposition is returning to IPG’s home town of Philadelphia next month, taking place April 20-22. Some 10,000 people are expected to attend the three-day show, with hundreds of vendors planning to exhibit. To whet your appetite, IPG asked some key vendors what they plan to showcase at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

THESE ARE challenging times for in-plants, as cost cutting, downsizing, department justifications and threats to outsource permeate daily business. Now is the time to strengthen your customer relationships and provide value-added services beyond conventional and digital printing.

LIKE MANY in-plants, Iowa Bankers Association's two-employee print shop had been getting by for years with old, inefficient folding equipment. Its friction-fed Baum folder had been around since Gerald Ford was in the White House. It was slow, inconsistent and could not handle heavy stock very well.

At George Fox University, producing course packs has always required a lot of time spent manually punching and coil binding pages. A recent installation, however, is destined to change everything.

True print personalization — namely, customized catalogs and other tailored direct mail communications — was supposed to be the next big thing five years ago. As the experts said back then, costs will continue to come down, quality will improve and the process will be faster and easier.

All that's happened. So why aren't more people using variable data printing today?

Most marketers still believe it's too expensive. The price may have come down significantly, but a personalized print job is going to cost more than a traditional per-piece rate for a regular catalog — about three times more, by some estimates. And with the economy what it's been, nobody is interested in increasing their expenditures.

Our No. 1 critical recommendation for clients using variable data printing is that they must have a relevant message.

Faster than a speeding toner particle, more versatile than big iron, able to convert complex variable data in a scalable RIP — high-speed inkjet presses are generating a lot of buzz. Indeed, almost half of the respondents to our December 2009 “Web Offset Survey” believe high-speed inkjet presses are a threat to web offset volume. Inkjet webs can produce custom, variable publications including newspapers. Books present another significant opportunity. And with mailing volumes down, targeted marketing is gaining traction.

For starters, you’ll need a team of engaged stakeholders from marketing, IT, billing, production print and perhaps support from outside consultancies.

in July, the in-plant for the City of Henderson, Nev., installed a new Xerox iGen4 digital color press. The shop traded in its Xerox DocuColor 250, along with a Xerox DocuColor 5252 and a DocuTech 6135, keeping its lease costs for the iGen4 the same. So far the iGen4 has done an excellent job printing promotional materials for the Department of Cultural Arts and Tourism. The cost savings have been noticeable.