Digital envelope printing has increased at in-plants, bringing in new business

By Bob Neubauer

The Feeding Frenzy

One issue that comes up a lot when in-plants discuss the differences between digital envelope presses is the feeder. Xanté, the first to actively market its digital envelope press to in-plants, initially used a feeder that pulled envelopes in from the top. Some saw this as a disadvantage compared to the top-loading, bottom-feeding devices from OKI, Intoprint and PSI. With those devices, users could load envelopes while the machine was printing, while Xanté Ilumina users had to wait until the feeder was empty before loading it again.

“That’s definitely a drawback in the older models,” admits Glenda Miley, whose in-plant at Auburn University was one of the first to get a Xanté Ilumina.

Xanté has introduced the TL-30 Top Load Feeder, which holds 500 envelopes and can be reloaded while the printer is running. Xanté now offers both this version and the top-feeding version.

LIKE ANY in-plant manager, Glenda Miley is always on the lookout for new services her in-plant can offer. Still, when the manager of Auburn University's CopyCat operation spotted an ad in IPG for Xanté's Ilumina Digital Envelope Press two years ago, she didn't recognize the opportunity right away. Her first thought was, "We don't print that many envelopes."

Then she thought about it some more and realized there was no reason her in-plant couldn't print more of them. So after showing samples of envelopes printed on the Ilumina to her university and making her case, CopyCat won the bid to become Auburn's official printer of #9 and #10 one- and two-color envelopes.

Now, a year and a half after acquiring a Xanté Ilumina Digital Envelope Press, Miley considers it one of the best moves the Auburn, Ala., in-plant ever made.

"Our campus, which is used to offset, just loves the quality of the envelopes and the speed that I can get them out," she enthuses. "They can't believe that they're getting envelopes on the same day that they put the order in."

As a result, orders have been streaming in, to the tune of roughly 50,000 envelopes a month.

"We've done more than a million envelopes on it," Miley proclaims, proudly. She couldn't be happier with her decision to start printing envelopes.

Over the past couple of years, there has been a noticeable increase in envelope printing at in-plants. The trend has been enabled by the availability of small digital envelope presses from companies like Xanté, PSI Engineering, Intoprint Technologies and OKI Data Americas. All of the devices use the same OKI print engine but offer different feeding options. These devices hit the market just as many in-plants' old offset duplicators were breaking down and their operators started retiring.

Those who installed envelope printers have spread the word to other in-plants about their ease of use, print quality and ability to print envelopes on demand.

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Bob Neubauer Author's page

Bob has served as editor of In-plant Impressions since October of 1994. Prior to that he served for three years as managing editor of Printing Impressions, a commercial printing publication. Mr. Neubauer is very active in the U.S. in-plant industry. He attends all the major in-plant conferences and has visited more than 170 in-plant operations around the world. He has given presentations to numerous in-plant groups in the U.S., Canada and Australia, including the Association of College and University Printers and the In-plant Printing and Mailing Association. He also coordinates the annual In-Print contest, co-sponsored by IPMA and In-plant Impressions.

The Envelope Opportunity

The Envelope  Opportunity