Inkjet & Digital Printing

Screen Truepress Jet520 Increases Volumes, Margins at Dayton Mailing Services

Tuesday 17. September 2013 - Continuous-feed inkjet can be a big profit center for a printing business. Christine Soward, owner of Dayton Mailing Services (DMS) in Dayton, Ohio, sees plenty of growth opportunities in the Screen Truepress Jet520's lower cost of impression compared to traditional offset and toner methods of printing.

“The beauty of an inkjet web press is you put a roll on and it prints,” Soward said. “That significantly reduces production time and frees up operators to perform other tasks while the press is running.”
DMS is a family-owned and operated commercial mail house founded in 1983 by Soward’s father, Robert Hale. Soward started working in the bindery from the time of the company’s inception. Making it a point to learn every detail, large and small, of the family business, Soward bought DMS from her father in 2005. Since then, she has dedicated herself to investment in technology and talent.
Soward’s investments paid dividends. The past several years have seen DMS’ sales increase 10 to 15 percent year over year. Soward puts the rate of growth for 2013 at 20 percent.
The woman-owned certified business with 47 employees and a modern, 100,000-square-feet facility serves clients nationally. DMS offers customers a full range of printing, fulfillment and mailing services. DMS can digitally design a piece of mail for a customer and print and mail it. DMS’ presorter machine can process one million pieces of mail daily.
Predominantly a sheetfed digital shop, DMS operates seven digital cut-sheet presses. The printer also utilizes a toner-based web press to handle longer runs.
Facing steadily rising print volumes and downward pressure on pricing, Soward said it was important for DMS to adopt a digital printing system that afforded high uptime and cost-effective production.
“So we could increase our volumes and margins,” Soward emphasized. “After comparing quite a few machines in terms of economy, ease of use, footprint and quality of the final product, we concluded that the Truepress Jet520 gives us the best potential for growth. We did the math on the cost of toner, paper stock and overtime to get the job out the door. The Truepress Jet520 meets our customers’ volumes and deadlines without us having to raise our prices.”
The Truepress Jet520, installed in March 2013, is the industry-leading system for high-volume color inkjet production. DMS now delivers 100 percent variability at reduced turnaround times and attractive price points.
“The Truepress Jet520 prints fully customized promotional materials,” Soward said. “It is amazing how fast the front-end RIP feeds variable data to the print engines.”
DMS equipped the press with two print engines to print on both sides of the paper rolls at the full web width of 20.4 inches. To provide a flexible print-on-demand solution, DMS combined inline and near-line finishing systems. This combination enables the choice of roll to roll, roll to cut and stack, and roll to eight-page signatures.
“We like the flexibility of being able to accommodate anywhere from a couple hundred to several hundred thousand pieces,” Soward said.
Because brand image is top of mind with corporate customers, DMS can confidently add color logos and brand images to a broader range of marketing products.
“Every client is different, and that means different uses of color and quality requirements,” Soward pointed out. “In marketing, the logo has to hit the mark. I was prepared not to be amazed by the quality of the Truepress Jet520 when I first looked at the printing. Inkjet had not impressed me in the past. The Truepress Jet520 prints nice-looking products. The resolution is very crisp. Viewed under a loupe, the images do not exhibit the overspray you sometimes see with inkjet printing.”