Neopost

Roundup of just a few of the inserting machines on the market for in-plants, plus reports from a couple installations.

GALLUP PRIDES itself on its reputation for delivering "relevant, timely and visionary research on what people around the world think." To deliver much of that information, the 75-year-old organization depends on its 32-employee in-plant facility in Omaha, Neb.

THOUGH SOME major digital printing equipment vendors may have sat out this year's AIIM/On Demand Conference and Exposition in Philadelphia, all of the key bindery vendors were there, showing off their latest innovations. IPG spent time at all of their booths.

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.

At Metro, the transit agency serving the St. Louis region, the five-employee in-house printing and mailing facility recently executed multiple, multi-faceted initiatives that have resulted in improved quality, increased efficiency and major cost savings. The in-plant has been supporting Metro for more than 20 years, producing platform schedules, training and employee documentation/manuals, forms, business cards and stationery, newsletters and board meeting materials, among other jobs. The facility also houses a full-service mail center. Both printing and mailing functions are considered part of Metro's Office Services department.

THOUGH PRINT 09 may have gotten off to a slow start, the crowds eventually showed up. And when they did, many of them headed right for the bindery equipment. Nowhere was that more true than at the Standard Finishing Systems exhibit, which was bustling with activity on the third day of the show, even as other booths appeared to be on siesta. Mark Hunt, director of marketing for Standard, thought he knew why.

LAST MONTH, in-plant managers from Texas colleges and universities met in Austin for the Texas Association of College and University Printers' (TACUP) conference. While billed as a regional conference, TACUP was actually the largest gathering of university in-plant managers this year, with 40 managers in attendance from as far away as Arizona, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Virginia. And judging by their responses, it was also one of the best events of its kind.

Neopost USA has acquired Rena Systems, a provider of tabletop ink-jet address printers. Both companies will join forces to create a new Addressing Solutions Competency Center in Oaks, PA. This new facility will focus on growing the Neopost, Hasler and Rena brands’ addressing solutions business.

THE LATEST USPS regulations may have inspired visitors to Graph Expo to be more aggressive in their purchasing habits. Across the show floor, mailing equipment vendors reported a lot of interest in their wares. Here’s a look at what was available. BCC Software demonstrated its Mail Manager 2010 mail preparation solution. It is USPS-certified to deliver top encoding and presorting performance, and is fully compliant with all recent Postal Service rate and regulation changes. A new 2010 premium option, the deluxe automation product Job Manager, was demonstrated at the show. It uses watchfolder technology to provide unattended mail processing operations. Böwe Bell + Howell highlighted its

SOFTWARE E-ticketing with Hardcopy Jobs Rochester Software Associates has introduced QDirect.SCAN Connector for eCopy Share­Scan OP. QDirect.SCAN enables electronic job ticketing with hardcopy submission directly from multi-function printers (MFPs). Users log in for accounting purposes and specify options such as duplex, stapling and paper stock. Those choices, along with the scanned documents, are transmitted to QDirect, which generates a confirmation receipt that is printed at the requestor’s MFP. An electronic job ticket is automatically created from the user entry. The resulting print-ready file can be sent to any printer in the in-plant. Software Delivers Jobs ‘To Spec’ Quickcut has introduced QuickPrint 5, the