Océ Helps Advanced Image Direct Become an Integrated Communications Provider Since installing two Océ VarioPrint® 6250 systems and an Océ CS650 Pro full-color system, Advanced Image Direct

is strategically positioned to help customers address all of their business communication needs.

Advanced ImageDirect

Océ Case Study

According to Direct Marketing Strategist Sophia Maksymchak, “Advanced Image Direct is a company founded on breaking through boundaries and helping customers see what’s around the corner. While we have extensive experience in direct response, lead generation, and contact management, our vision is to become a vertically integrated, single solution provider that provides customers with the value-added services they need. We combine technology, deep subject matter expertise, and industry-specific knowledge of ad mail and variable data printing to execute against our business strategy and deliver results for our clients.”

Vice President of Sales Perry Wilson states, “Right now we are known as the largest regional player in the business. We have the largest physical plant in the West for letter shop solutions. Our technology is

For customers who need a full-service direct mail and commercial print provider to help them address a wide range of business communication challenges—whether it’s one-to-one marketing, TransPromo, database management, brochures, booklet printing or ad mail—Advanced Image Direct delivers an incomparable competitive advantage.

The full-service commercial print, direct mail, and fulfillment service provider located in Fullerton, California has made a name for itself serving a customer list that reads like a Who’s Who of Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 and regional businesses. The company’s facility supports a monthly capacity of 60 million plus pieces of mail per month, along with web and sheet-fed personalization, secure biometric access and an on-site USPS postal facility.

According to President Frank Verrill, “We can support the needs of any company with monthly mailings in volumes ranging from 10,000 to 10 million pieces.”

He adds, “We expect our existing platforms and our new equipment, coupled with the experience of our sales and production staff to enable us to continue our growth as we work with customers, vendors, printers and advertising agencies to build proactive, consultative relationships.”

A company founded on breaking through boundariesThe company has achieved its position as a valued and strategic business partner focused on producing direct mail, corporate communications, collateral and graphic arts jobs with quality, flexibility and rapid turnaround by addressing customers’ personal needs and requests.

all new, and we’re not locked into legacy equipment, people, or processes. We serve a diverse mix of clients, including leaders in financial services, healthcare, cable, satellite, entertainment and general business. And, in every case, customer service is our hallmark. We deliver solutions that help customers achieve their business goals, and that’s what keeps them coming back for more.”

From leading direct mail provider to integrated communications providerIn today’s market, businesses are looking for strategic partners that can provide a one-stop resource for a variety of communications needs. Today, Advanced Image Direct is making the transition to becoming an integrated service provider to offer customers a wider range of services and expertise. Already, the company, which started out as a traditional lettershop, has evolved into a sophisticated print-to-mail and commercial print operation housed in a state-of-the-art 136,000 square-foot facility. Here, 325 employees apply the latest pro-duction methodologies and technologies to produce highly personalized, database-driven black & white and full-color documents.

Chief Executive Officer Ty McMillin, notes, “We’re expanding our service offering to become a complete marketing services provider. Our intent is to provide our customers with complete solutions to all of their business com-munications needs. That means helping them develop and deploy everything from direct mail, lead generation, and loyalty programs to brochures, collateral, and on-demand books like directories, service manuals, training guides and booklets—especially where we can add value with personalization.”

“What makes Advanced Image Direct unique in the industry,” says Wilson, “is the fact that we can offer customers so much choice and flexibility, and so many technology platforms. We have multiple high-speed and cut-sheet color products, web imaging products that include spot color systems, inline sheet-fed products and now the Océ VarioPrint 6250 digital duplex cut sheet printers, not to mention a staff of extremely knowledgeable and well-trained professionals who know how to get results.”

The Océ VarioPrint 6250 system delivers duplex productivityAdvanced Image Direct is a longtime Océ customer and leverages the company’s advanced technology to deliver an important competitive edge. McMillin notes, “We’re very mindful of the role that technology plays in helping customers achieve their business objectives. We want to be on the leading edge, not the bleeding edge—we look for proven technology that can help us create value for our customers, improve our competitive position, and reduce labor costs.”

For many print providers like Advanced Image Direct, 80 percent of print volumes are duplex. To meet this growing need, and to provide customers with exceptional duplex capabilities with near-offset quality, Advanced Image Direct recently added two Océ VarioPrint 6250 digital duplex cut sheet printers with BLM500 booklet makers to its fleet of production printing systems. “The Océ equipment supports our business strategy in that we can offer short-run services with a high-quality product. We were impressed by the speed, ease of

use, reliability, capacity, quality and pure productivity of the Océ VarioPrint 6250,” McMillin points out.

At 250 letter-sized prints per minute, the Océ VarioPrint 6250, recent winner of the prestigious PIA/GATF InterTech Award and BERTL’s Beyond 5 Star Rating, is up to 70 percent more productive than any other cut sheet printer in its class. Powered by Océ Gemini Instant Duplex technology, the Océ VarioPrint 6250 system presses images into both sides of the page in a single pass. The result is higher productivity, offset-class quality, near-perfect registration and greater operational efficiency.

Plant Manager Hugo Solorio, joined the company in 1999. “We were a typical lettershop, but even then our vision was to differentiate our company from the competition by offering technology, services, and capabilities that others could not. Over the years we have achieved that goal.”

Solorio adds, “We use the Océ VarioPrint 6250 systems for our high-speed, high-end production requirements and for jobs with extra-large sizes up to 19 inches. Most of our jobs are typical 17-inch applications printed on large paper with a bleed, so support for oversized paper is a capability we need. The Océ VarioPrint 6250 does a great job at handling those jobs.”

“With these machines, we can offer customers truly convergent solutions for everything from solicitation letters to reports, brochures, booklets and books. We can compete head to head with

commercial print shops with twice as much overhead, with faster turnaround and lower costs,” says Solorio, “the addition of Océ equipment has expanded our capacity tremendously. We’ve been able to shift high-volume, production jobs from our Konica machines to the Océ VarioPrint 6250 systems and turn jobs around faster, and more profitably.”

According to Solorio, “Our cutsheet work is growing rapidly—I’d estimate volumes are increasing at a rate of about 40 percent. Our main objective was to be able to get jobs printed and out the door faster to increase customer satisfaction and to keep pace with growth. We have more and more customers requesting 600 dpi duplex jobs, so the Océ VarioPrint 6250 was the right system at the right time.”

High-quality, short-run colorFor short runs of full color jobs that require variable data, Advanced Image Direct installed an Océ CS650 Pro full- color production system. “The Océ color technology fills a gap in our production area for short run color,” says McMillin, “With the Océ CS650 Pro, we can do short -run color jobs like book covers, postcards, business cards, and flyers and run variable data jobs on the machine.”

Today, as more customers demand personalized marketing materials and mailings in color, Advanced Image Direct is ready to capture the business. The Océ CS650 Pro prints and copies full color output at a rate of 65 images per minute. It also provides extensive scanning

functionality and a number of finishing, media and controller options to fit every job mix and production workflow. The system prints in full color and black & white and helps Advanced Image Direct drive productivity with generous input and output capacity for unattended production.

Solorio adds, “We wanted a digital color system that would give us quality as close to web-fed offset as possible. We really feel we’re getting that with the Océ CS650 Pro.”

Oil-free fusing delivers prints that can be written on or printed over, making the system perfectly suited for varnishing or laminating. New high-definition toner serves up rich colors, dense blacks and crisp details. As a result, Advanced Image Direct customers can count on consistent quality and excellent results for their important jobs.

Océ Track Record ContinuesThe Océ VarioPrint 6250 and Océ CS650 Pro systems join a long line of Océ products at Advanced Image Direct, and with each addition, the benefits have compounded. “We keep coming back to Océ because we are excited about the direction of the technology they bring to the marketplace in both continuous feed and cutsheet systems and the fact that they help us take our business in new directions,” states McMillin.

Five years ago, the company installed two Océ PageStream 932 Twin printers. Then in late 2007, they upgraded to the Océ VarioStream® 7650 continuous feed twin printing sytem, widely respected as the production workhorse of the industry.

Documents are created and composed using GMC PrintNet software and then printed on any of four Konica printers, the newer Océ VarioStream® 7650 or the two Océ VarioPrint 6250 systems. Color documents are produced on an Océ CS650 Pro color production system, and the company uses Océ PRISMAproduction®, which automatically manages the print process from intake to post-production.

Advanced Image Direct improves quality and productivityToday, Advanced Image Direct operators are delighted with the user-friendly Océ VarioPrint 6250 digital duplex systems and booklet makers. Favorite features include the eight identical drawers, the integrated scheduling tool, excellent print quality, near-perfect registration and non-stop reliability. With the extra capacity, operators find that they can load and run jobs longer without interrupting printing and can even set up the next job.

With support for lightweight stock, coated paper and many other media, the Océ VarioPrint 6250 system gives Advanced Image Direct greater flexibility. Even specialty jobs can be produced more efficiently. With the systems’ extra-wide 12˝ x 19˝ image size, they can easily print documents they couldn’t take on before.

Output quality is of paramount importance to Advanced Image Direct and its customers. The company is finding that customers are extremely pleased with the quality of the Océ VarioPrint 6250 systems. According to Solorio, “One of the first jobs we ran on the system

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was for one of our biggest customers—it was a very detailed black & white job run on pre-printed color shells, with a map, graphics and lots of fine detail. The quality was excellent and the customer was very happy. Now, we’re identifying jobs that will benefit from the print registration and quality of the Océ VarioPrint 6250 and running them on the new systems to improve our customers’ results.”

As for productivity, Solorio adds, “Our speed has increased, our turnaround time has decreased, and we can run far more volume. From my perspective, volume and throughput are very important, and we’re definitely more productive. The machines are easy to operate and run faster, so our operators prefer these machines and want to use them all the time.”

“With the Océ VarioPrint 6250 systems and the BLM500 booklet makers, we’re opening up entire new markets,” concludes Wilson, “We’re now strategically positoned to expand our service offering, to fuel new growth, meet all of our customers’ capacity needs, and anticipate their future requirements today.”

A premier provider of personalized business communicationsThe ability to support a wide range of customer requirements, from inline finished personalized mailers to jobs produced on high-speed Océ VarioPrint 6250 and Océ CS650 Pro color printers clearly positions Advanced Image Direct as the premier provider of personalized direct marketing and graphic arts printing solutions.

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