Inkjet & Digital Printing
Fergies Partners with Fuji Xerox to Enhance Digital Production Capabilities
Monday 17. August 2009 - Fergies Print and Mail, Queenslands largest privately-owned commercial print and mail provider, has partnered with Fuji Xerox Australia to boost the companys digital production capabilities and diversify its service offerings in areas such as variable data printing.
With the Nuvera 120 EA digital production system, Fergies has increased the efficiency of its A3 production whilst improving their paper-handling processes fivefold. The company has also enhanced its variable data printing capabilities using Fuji Xeroxs XMPie uDirect software, which enables Fergies to personalise content for both colour and black and white print jobs.
Fergies, which started out as a traditional offset printer, has been expanding rapidly into the digital print market, experiencing 140 per cent growth in its digital print business in the last year alone. The companys mailing division has also grown by 50 per cent per annum, so increasing the turnaround and efficiency of both print and mail jobs were paramount to sustaining strong business growth.
Graham Liddle, Financial Controller at Fergies Print and Mail, said that investing in Fuji Xeroxs technology solutions has put Fergies in a strong position to capitalise on growing customer demand for digital printing.
“Were now well placed to serve the digital print market and can also deliver greater service innovation, quality and value to our customers with the Nuvera 120 EA and XMPie variable data software,” said Liddle.
According to Liddle, Fergies installed the Nuvera 120 EA earlier in March this year after its legacy monochrome digital production system failed to adequately support its business needs.
“We had outgrown our previous machine and were dissatisfied with the service we received. After conducting an extensive review of all the solutions available on the market, we chose to partner with Fuji Xerox for three main reasons.
“Firstly, theres a real cost benefit as the Nuvera 120 EA is more economical to operate and it increases the efficiency of jobs through automated workflow processes. Secondly, Fuji Xerox provides exceptional service and technical support, far better than our previous supplier. Finally, Fuji Xerox is very proactive in areas such as training so we can really capitalise on the digital print opportunity. Its a real partnership, not just a supplier relationship.”
Nuvera Ensures Seamless Workflow while Boosting Production Capacity
Fergies has been gradually building on its Fuji Xerox technology investment, initially using the Nuvera 120 EA to complement its offset business in areas such as magazine production and direct mail pieces.
Fergies, which serves a very broad customer base, uses offset equipment to produce magazines and other collateral for numerous publishers. To ensure a seamless workflow, the company uses the Nuvera 120 EA to print black and white magazine flysheets. Fergies also produces direct marketing mail pieces incorporating offset pre-printed shells with the Nuvera 120 EA handling the overprinting of barcodes, graphics and other variable elements.
In the space of only five months, Fergies has already realised numerous benefits using the Nuvera 120 EA.
With print speeds of up to 120 images per minute for A4 and 72 for A3, the Nuvera system enables Fergies to deliver a much faster A3 workflow to accommodate customer demands.
As the Nuvera 120 EA paper trays rely on air shuttle feed technology, Fergies has been able to benefit from a more reliable and productive feeding and paper-handling process. Fergies can handle oversize stocks using the Nuveras high capacity sheet-feed module, which caters for a demanding production environment.
With Xerox FreeFlow, which is integrated with the Nuvera 120 EA system, Fergies has been able to automate and simplify several workflow processes. FreeFlow Print Server provides Fergies with the ability to simultaneously spool, RIP, and print several small jobs or a long streaming job, including the ability to print and re-print on demand locally or remotely.
In the future, Fergies also plans to take advantage of Fuji Xeroxs XMPie variable data software to move away from transactional workflows toward transpromotional workflows with greater content personalisation.
“XMPie gives us a much better handle on variable data printing. This is going to be a big focus area for us over the next few years as we grow our digital print business and diversify our direct marketing mail offerings,” said Liddle.