Postcards only - ideal setup?

[tulsadir]

Hi there,

What setup would you go with,if you were starting from scratch, and knew you needed to print the following monthly:


tee jobs: 1,000 postcards ( everything 5.5.x8.5 full color/bleed/ 100#coated cover)
ten jobs: 2,500 postcards
five jobs: 5,000 postcards
eight jobs: 20,000 postcards
two jobs: 10,000 postcards
one job: 50,000 postcards
((thats 290,000 postcards))

four jobs: 1000 doorhangers (3.5.x8.5 full color/bleed/ 100#coated cover)
ten jobs: 500 doorhangers
((thats 9000 doorhangers))


(we are direct mail house with zero print equipment - deciding between offset/di/toner)

[jotterpinky]

I would recommend you outsource the larger run lengths and purchase a digital production printer to produce the shorter runs of cards - probably all runs of less than 5,000 pieces. The longer runs should be more cost effective outsourcing. If these are the only jobs you plan on running each month you won't be able to afford a 4-color offset/DI press and get someone trained to operate it. If you've never done printing in-house the digital equipment learning curve is less steep. You'll have to decide for sure what run lengths you can do cheaper in-house after calculating your click rate and machine cost.

As for digital production equipment there is a large number of machines that would work depending on the volume you decide to do in-house and what you want to out-source. e.g. KM 6000, 7000, 8000, as well as the Xerox 700, 770, 8080, 800, IGen, Canon 6010, 7010, HP Indigo 3500, 5000, 7000, Ricoh 751,901, etc.

I hope this is some sort of semblance of an answer to your question.

[graficworx]

Lets break down your problem into how a pressman thinks. If we consider a standard press sheet size to be 2-up letter (12x18 tabloid extra in the digital world), we see that you can do 4 postcards per press sheet, and 10 door hangers per press sheet. BTW, this is the sheet size on a 34cm press, such as a 34DI, Ryobi 3302/3304.

If my calculations are correct, for your postcards that will be 72,500 press sheets and for the door hangers 900 press sheets. They are broken down as follows:

2 Gang runs of 1000 sheets.
1 Gang run of 500 sheets.
3 Gang run of 5000 sheets.
2 Gang run of 1250 sheets.
2 Gang runs of 20000 sheets.
1 Gang run of 12500 sheets.

If you had a good press operator and a 4 color press this could be completed in two shifts. Then the rest of the month the press would sit idle.

[PrintTriks]

So in short I agree with Graficworx, a toner based system would meet your needs.

[Disappointed]

Then the rest of the month the press would sit idle.

This is not good, we have been there and presses do not like it at all, rollers shrink and dry out and electrical gremlins start to appear. Outsourcing or more work is a good idea for the long runs, digital for the rest.

[tulsadir]

The jobs would be coming in spreadout throughout the month..this is about our average. could have more, less

[mattbeals]

Sounds like a Metrix job.

[sonic]

Hi there,

What setup would you go with,if you were starting from scratch, and knew you needed to print the following monthly:


tee jobs: 1,000 postcards ( everything 5.5.x8.5 full color/bleed/ 100#coated cover)
ten jobs: 2,500 postcards
five jobs: 5,000 postcards
eight jobs: 20,000 postcards
two jobs: 10,000 postcards
one job: 50,000 postcards
((thats 290,000 postcards))

four jobs: 1000 doorhangers (3.5.x8.5 full color/bleed/ 100#coated cover)
ten jobs: 500 doorhangers
((thats 9000 doorhangers))


(we are direct mail house with zero print equipment - deciding between offset/di/toner)

The answer to this is outsource gangrun high quantity (1250+ or no more than 2500+) and lease a low end digital to open up your on demand / rush / short run mailers. The 5000ap you talked about in your other post would suite your needs fine if it's a good enough price.

The nice thing about digital for your business is that you can now do some more unique mail that you don't offer now such as VDP or short run mail which otherwise you wouldn't do. Also, your short run will never have to move over to your addresser because you'd be printing addresses during printing and then cut and stack.


It creates a little more opportunity that you don't have and gives you the control of printing emergency runs on your digi. If your gangrun printer falls through you can still get your high quantity job out on the digi and you'll never have an upset customer (just an upset pocket after you the see the click costs!)

I'd stay away from the DI as you should be able to outsource for less money than operating that press. It's a great entry level offset press because no worries about platemaker, but I wouldn't recommend placing your long term business goals on that machine. It's definitely not push button operation like a digital would be. It's expensive to operate and an idle press is an unhappy press.

Contact me privately if you'd like some more advice on this. I'd love to help.

B