PRINTING United Expo Hot Products Spotlight: W+D BB820+ High-Speed Inserting System

(Editor's note: This review of the W+D BB820+, which will debut at the upcoming PRINTING United Expo, is part of an ongoing series featuring longtime industry consultant David Zwang's rundown of his "Must See" products that will be on the show floor.)

Making its debut at PRINTING United Expo 2023, W+D has some very interesting and timely mailing solutions to show. Its new products are all about addressing labor challenges and production efficiencies. It's now about the data and how you can leverage the data to mail less pieces, but that are more meaningful and hit their targets.

W+D BB820+

In light of that, W+D is headlining its North American premier of the BBA820+. This is a servo-driven inserting system that operates at 20K pieces per hour, making it one of the most productive inserters available. It is also one of the most flexible inserting systems, supporting a wide range of outer envelopes from a US#7 up to a 10”x13” with a package thickness of up to 15 mm or ⁶/₁₀”. Companies really don't want to buy dedicated machines for flats or for specific type of envelopes, and this supports the widest array of envelope sizes users can produce off of one inserter.

The W+D BB820+ comes with the new RF4 rotary feeder for consistent feeding at increased speeds with enhanced size range and a new insertion module. It features patented Auto Mismatch Recovery for “hands-free,” synchronized inserting of personalized inserts, now further enhanced to match personalized outer envelopes by deploying the new divert bin on the track. It is designed with full modularity to ensure quick and easy interchangeability of different feeder types within the W+D inserter platforms and to easily adapt to future requirements. Different feeder types can be rolled in and rolled out as your product changes. You pick a base, six, eight, or 10 station base; you can mix and match. It is controlled with the updated W+D control panel with the BSC4.0 operating system with a new 22” touchscreen, allowing the operator to see everything at a glance with an intuitive machine operation.

They will be running a mix of extreme products during the show with digital print, with one-to-one mail matching technology.

W+D will also be previewing and showing samples from its new 449E-COMMERCE machine. Imagine kraft paper roll in, and gusseted envelopes out, in one machine! No need for multiple processes — it is a complete in-line e-commerce mailing bag system that can produce large bags with gussets, bottoms and, since it is in-line, no setup waste between processes. The 449E-COMMERCE won't be at the expo because the machine is pretty long. However, videos and samples of the actual e-commerce product will be there.

Since W+D is now a part of the BW Converting Solutions, which includes Paper Converting Machine Co. (PCMC), Baldwin Technology Co., Winkler + Dünnebier (W+D), STAX Technologies, Hudson-Sharp, and Northern Engraving and Machine, there will be lots of other interesting things to see at the booth!