Mailing/Fulfillment - Hardware

The PIA/GATF Digital Printing Council has published a study called “Digital Printing and Survivability in the U.S. Postal System.” It tested five digital presses and one offset press to find out how durable their products were once they hit the mail stream.

The presses involved were Canon ImagePRESS C7000VP, HP Indigo 5500, Kodak Nexpress S3000, Océ CS650 Pr, Xerox iGen3 and a Komori offset press. The presses printed a total of 400 postcards, which were put into the traditional mail stream through four U.S. cities. Upon delivery, each postcard was tested for marking or abrasion.

Working for a municipality facing a projected budget deficit of $2 billion can be a scary proposition. But for Gary McElvaney, mail center manager at the City of Philadelphia’s Mail Processing Center, it has presented an opportunity to help get his employer back in the black. The mail processing center’s 13 employees provide folding, perfing, inserting and mailing services. A separate city agency handles printing of approximately 30,000 water bills per day, as well as other city billing, which is then finished at the mail processing center. All told, the in-plant cranks out 6 million municipal water bills and about 15 million pieces annually.

IT’S A good thing Catherine Chambers isn’t afraid of a challenge, because that’s exactly what she got when she accepted the position of manager of Printing & Mailing Services for the State College Area School District in State College, Pa. “I replaced an excellent manager [Gary Burris] who’d been in the position for 38 years,” she explains. “It was my job to take an analog print shop, complete with three offset presses, and bring it into the digital age.” And with more than 20 years of experience in managing print, copier and mailing functions in higher education and the private sector, Chambers was

Co-mailing—the process in which a mailer (usually your printer) combines the mailing of your magazine with that of other titles—isn’t a new process. However, chances are you’ve only performed one or two postal analyses utilizing co-mailing techniques. And, when you did your analyses, you may have misunderstood how much you would be “saving” by co-mailing. By its very nature, analyzing co-mailing costs is difficult because it is a moving target. With each mailing pool, the participants change; therefore, quantities, weights and destinations change, resulting in different costs. To make matters more confusing, the mailers use different methods, equipment, terminology, billing procedures, and numbers and

While deterrents to mailing catalogs continue to mount (rising postage and paper costs, threats of do-not-mail legislation, environmental backlash, the Web’s rising popularity, etc.), the benefits of this marketing medium seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle. So it’s fair to ask the question: Are catalogs worth it anymore? We randomly surveyed a cross-section of multichannel merchants and found the following facts illustrating the catalog medium’s continued importance in most marketing budgets. • Shiffler, a B-to-B cataloger of school and facility furniture, supplies and equipment, this year launched its second catalog title, Facility Hardware. More than 90 percent of its revenue comes

Mail imaging equipment has gotten sophisticated. In-Plant Graphics’ specifications chart lets you compare some of the latest systems. Click on the "2008 Mailing Equipment Product Chart (PDF)" link at right to view a PDF of the chart.

Chart comparing features of leading mailing equipment.

If you mail at automation-discounted postal rates, your catalog will have to meet a host of new requirements next January, including the USPS’s Intelligent Mail Barcode (IMB). The USPS last month issued its proposed rules on the requirements that go along with automation rates starting in January 2009. It goes beyond the IMB, although that in and of itself is a significant change. The Postal Service’s proposed rules would no longer allow the POSTNET barcode, which has been in use for nearly two decades, to qualify for automation discounts beginning in January 2009. It’s not clear what will happen to pieces

Buhrs Americas and Lake Image Systems will hold a multi-city road show to showcase products offered by the companies. Demonstrations will be held in these cities: Baltimore, Maryland—March 6 Decatur, Georgia—March 13 Dallas, Texas—March 27 Los Angeles, California—April 3 Chicago, Illinois—April 10 Woodcliff Lake, NJ—April 17 Attendees can register at www.lakeimage.com/asp_print_roadshowreg.asp . For additional information, contact Lake Image Systems at (585) 321-3630 or Buhrs Americas at (763) 557-9100.

MBO’s recent open house was a mini trade show featuring printing and inline binding equipment from 20 vendors. Here’s a look at the highlights.