Buying Advice for on demand brochure printing

[advlife]

Hello, I have a travel company and we would like to change the way we produce our brochures. Rather than one brochure of a hundred pages, we would like to tailor make our brochures depending on the customer's interest. We can create the interface in our photo and content database to do this, but I need advice on what printer or press to buy.

We will print 2-3 times per week, producing approximately 600 brochures of 24-72 pages. 72 is on the large size and we could get by with a maximum of 60 pages. Average might be 48 pages of approximately 8 1/2 to 11 inch pages. This would be the equivalent of 11 sheets of 11x17 inch paper and 1 sheet of cover stock. This would be approximately 30,000 8.5 x 11 pages per month

We want the machine to fold and stable. Ideally, we could have a full bleed, so the printer would need to be able to accept larger sheets and have a finisher the would trim, staple and fold.

With the right printer, we might do other printing with the machine, adding up to another 2000-5,000 sheets per month.

We could, but don't need to, do all our normal printing, faxing and scanning with this machine.

My company is in Missoula Montana (pop 100,000), so options and expertise isn't that great. So far, the only option that has been suggested is the Konica bizhub C360 with the SD-509.

We sell a luxury product - travel to exotic locations around the world. So, we need a high quality product. Will this suffice? Seems like it isn't enough. I'd like to keep the cost at $25,000. From what I've read, the bizhub C360 doesn't trim and I'm uncertain if it can fold and staple the paper weights and quantities.

My question is, is there a printer out there that will do what I need - print, trim, staple, fold, for $25,000 or less?

 

[xfactor printing]

I gave you some feedback in your other thread at http://www.colorprintingforum.com/k...vice-for-small-production-brochures-7568.html

 

[Joe Duffy]

Why not just look into a 3-5 year lease on a Ricoh 651 with the Plokmatic finishing equipment and a Fiery RIP?

 

[Innah]

Brochure printing can be done efficiently with the right tools. My friend only rents the equipment because of financial considerations. It is also ideal especially if you want to avoid its maintenance requirements. Used machine is another option but in my opinion, I will not risk getting savings if I will not be assured of high-quality that lasts a long time.

 

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Test many papers out too. We've had some glossy stocks go bad just from sitting there. Some don't age well. Also, many non-glossy stocks work and look much better than glossy ones.