Printing / Folding / Stuffing Solution.

Hi,

We have been spending about 100k per year on printing services. Due to some price increases, term changes and quality issues (and the fact that we're just not impressed with any of the our other local print shops) we've decided to take our printing in house.

Our typical print 'products' are:

A four page color 'newsletter', printed double sided on a single 11 x 17 sheet of 60 pound cover, folded in half. Typically these are stuffed into 8.75 x 11.5 envelopes, or occasionally folded again and stuffed into 5.75 x 8.875 envelopes.

A 12 page 'booklet' printed on 1 11 x 17 sheet of 60 pound cover on the outside, and 2 11 x 17 sheets 28 pound bond inside, folded and stapled. These are always stuffed into 8.75 x 11.5 envelopes.

We'll probably do about 5000 'newsletters' per month (20000 8.5 x 11 equivalent sheets). We'll do about 500 'booklets' per month (6000 8.5 x 11 equilivent sheets).

We're looking to lease (or buy??) a (probably) used solution. Does not need to be xerox; didn't know where else to put this. I'm assuming based on our volume and budget we'll need to go with a laser printer. It probably would not be too painful to stuff 500 'booklets', coming out of the printer 3 or 4 a minute, by hand, but the 'newsletters' on the other hand would be a different story. So we'll probably need an envelope stuffer and folder of some sort.

Ultimately what we need is a relatively fast printer that does not need a lot of baby sitting. A folder of some sort, and an envelope stuffer.

Don't suppose there's a machine in our budget that'll do all of that in one pass? Do they even make such a beast?

What do you recommend for a good printer that won't choke and die on that volume? Needs to be duplex and staple down the middle; I guess at that point it would also need to fold (not sure though)? It would also need to have the capability to handle paper from different stocks.

How about stuffers and folders? This is where I have zero clue.

Thanks for your replies / recommendations.

 

A 560/570 with the light production finisher will do the single fold ok. For stuffing you'll need an offline machine.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Any idea how fast the "light production finisher" is? Will it keep up with the printer (roughly 6 "booklets" per minute)? Or will it slow down the job appreciably?

Thanks.

 

Go to our website and check out the specs on a variety of Xerox Printers. http://interfaceprinters.com/

 

Thanks InterfaceP...

I've read the specs on your site, and I also found this:

http://www.office.xerox.com/latest/X56SS-10.PDF

Lots of specs there, but it does not seem to talk about speed of the finisher... does anyone have firsthand experience with this?

Thanks.

 

Speed of the finisher is determined by the Printer it's hooked up too. In booklet making it depends entirely on the amount of pages in the book.

You should also look at the 700/700i/770 or a C75/J75.

Also, I'm not aware of any envelope suffer attachments currently available.

If you PM me your number or call the # on our website. She is very knowledgeable and will point you in the right direction.

 

It will keep up. Where you will need a bigger more expensive finisher is when you need to do heavy cover stock covers or where you need an inserter for bleed covers or other options.

 

We print a very similar newsletter. 11x17 paper size is folded in half by our printer's finisher and then manually stuffed into 8.75 x 11.5 envelopes. We are looking for a solution that will insert/stuff the folded (or 11x17 that would fold and then stuff) newsletter into 8.75 x 11.5 envelopes. We are so tired of manually stuffing these things. Did you ever find a solution? And if so, would you share what machine you are using?