Copywell has been in business for over 20 years. Its products and services are all encompassing – from traditional print projects to customized work, from creative and design to total fulfillment and distribution. “At Copywell, our team of sales, design and production professionals are dedicated to delivering the highest quality in design and print,” said President Anthony Iaizzo. “As a full-service design and print powerhouse, our clients enjoy industry-leading design, state-of-the-art technology and supreme customer care. We handle everything from large multimedia projects to branding and stationery for start-ups.”
The background
Ricoh Canada has consistently partnered with Copywell with products and services, especially in the realm of cutsheet printing. Having been with another vendor previously, Copywell recently decided to move to Ricoh’s cutsheet and continuous forms devices. Among other projects, Copywell produces training kits that include full-colour booklets several hundred pages long. Previously, Copywell was outsourcing about 45 million impressions per year to another printer. Ricoh Canada suggested that Copywell could bring these volumes in-house. The caveat? Copywell insisted that it did not want to raise customer prices, period. Bottom line: They needed to balance the new costs, create new warehouse space, find new applications for the new equipment, and manage all the changes with limited resources and budget.
Copywell researched several other Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that each provided print samples. They eventually chose Ricoh Canada to test print one of the kits on a Pro VC60000, which included a 724-page book. The result? The digital print quality exceeded Copywell’s expectations. Further discussions involved finishing opportunities and numerous other uses for the Pro VC60000 to open up new markets for Copywell.
Between October of 2015 and the end of January 2016, Ricoh Canada worked diligently with Copywell to understand the costs associated with removing existing equipment and installing Ricoh equipment – in addition to the potential opportunities for bringing high-volume, outsourced projects back in-shop. Those “opportunities” translated into unprecedented cost savings for Copywell.
The final Ricoh solution included the Ricoh Pro VC60000 printer with Hunkeler roll-to-cut solution, a Ricoh Pro C9110 production printer with additional input trays and a high-capacity stacker and finisher, a Ricoh Pro C7110x high-speed, 5-colour production-class laser printer, a Ricoh CW2200SP wide-format printer, a Xante envelope printer and a 55” Interactive Whiteboard. This “blockbuster” deal, the first in Canada, was based on Copywell working with Ricoh as a team, while confident they’ll continue to be a total solutions partner now and in the future.
Why the VC60000 over equipment from other OEMs?
“This huge investment will take Copywell to an entirely new level of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and print quality, while adding tremendous value for our current and potential clients,” said Copywell owner and CEO Frank Lacaria. “The VC60000’s print speed, faster turnarounds, print quality and variable-data capabilities will allow us to produce exceptional digital inkjet print that competes with offset in both price and quality. In some cases, we’ll actually be able to offer variable-data printing at less-than-standard offset prices. We’re extremely excited about this important milestone and the bold new direction it will take us in terms of customer satisfaction. Whether we’re printing books, magazines, brochures, direct mail or any other marketing collateral, we can customize every page of the job, now at lightning-fast speeds. The added value of variable data makes up for any differences in quality. Many of our clients are new to variable and the increased response rates that customization yields, so we work with them in incorporating this into their print whenever we see an opportunity,” he added.
Speed and customization
President Anthony Iaizzo echoes those comments. “The VC60000’s high-speed print-on-demand and variable-data capabilities will be a real game changer for us,” he emphasized. “We can add dynamic personalized printing to every page and meet our clients’ tight deadlines while adding value. Whether we’re adding critical billing messages to specific transactional documents, personalizing a direct-mail piece or even custom printing a book, we can deliver customized output to clients at incredibly fast speeds and at reasonable costs. Initially, we plan to use the printer for on-demand book printing, magazines and other periodicals. Speed and customization – this is without a doubt the future of digital print. And we’ll definitely be leading the way,” he added.
Going forward, Copywell will use the new Ricoh technology to bring in new business from various other sectors in addition to its current core customers. These include industries such as telecommunications, financial services, local government, electronic billing and invoices/statements, plus transactional document printing and mailing.
Improved efficiency, print quality and customization
“As far as in-house production, the VC60000 will help all our staff become much more efficient,” said Trina Al-Hani, Operations Manager. “It will automate repetitive tasks and allow us to perform production print jobs faster and more accurately. We can also customize how we print. We’ll do this by using the Ricoh TotalFlow R600A for scheduling, system tasks and repetitive tasks. Overall, we can now complete a wider range of projects, including on-demand orders, with greater quality and fewer errors, while at the same time reducing costs. The result for our customers is that we can give them high-volume, high quality printing for less. The speed of our new press, combined with our on-demand finishing equipment, allows us to be as competitive as possible with just about any kind of print job, while still specializing in book printing,” she added.
In March of this year, Ricoh announced a new set of capabilities for its Ricoh Pro VC60000 continuous-feed inkjet platform. The new features empowered customers to print more efficiently, save time and money, and expand their portfolio of offerings. Major new enhancements included:
Multiple print modes. Users who want to run a variety of applications, including full-colour or B&W, can selectively engage the printhead modules. Printhead arrays not required for a specific application can be disengaged. This provides cost savings and flexibility when printing B&W.
Extensions to colour control. Users will be able to add custom colour control bars and perform spot-colour editing as well as dynamic colour substitutions that provide more flexibility when generating full-colour applications.
Productivity and application enhancements. Users will have more choices as to how applications are processed, stored and reproduced with new RIP & Print options. The Pro VC60000’s Digital Front End now calculates and compensates in real time for any changes in paper characteristics that might impact image placement and print quality.
Users can also utilize a supported printable sheet width of 20” – making the transition from offset to cut-sheet digital applications easier.
More about Copywell’s Ricoh Pro VC60000
Ricoh believes that the Pro VC60000 will set a new benchmark for quality in its class as a result of its unique multi-drop ink technology that can achieve up to 1,200 x 1,200 dpi with a dynamic variable-drop size within each pixel. Overall, this provides significant additional perceived print quality. The Pro VC60000 can produce nearly 100,000 A4 images per hour. Ricoh sees its new printer as an ideal investment for medium to large printers seeking to “future-proof” their businesses, reach new clients and accelerate their offset-to-digital migration. The OEM’s 25 years of experience in printhead technology and ink development, combined with its software and service expertise, were key factors in development of the Pro VC60000.
Whether integrating into a fully digital or hybrid offset workflow, the Pro VC60000 Digital Front End (DFE) – the TotalFlow Print Server R600A – supports PDF, PDF/VT and AFP/IPDS together with JDF and advanced colour management. Ricoh has been developing its DFE print servers for almost 40 years, and its success is based upon its ability to provide scalable print servers that are flexible enough to handle integrated workflows in mixed printing environments. The Pro VC60000 is further supported by the Ricoh Process Director – powerful modular software that allows printers to automate the flow of jobs through production smoothly and with complete integrity, while retaining flexible control of their print and mail production processes.
Ricoh Pro VC60000 features at a glance
- New Ricoh high-resolution, drop-on-demand inkjet printheads.
- Print resolutions up to 1,200 x 1,200 dpi with dynamic variable drop size within each pixel.
- New Ricoh aqueous-based, high-density pigment inks.
- New Ricoh dynamic printhead positioning for precise colour registration.
- Support for traditional offset coated paper, with an optional undercoat unit that can accommodate a broad range of media including uncoated, coated offset, digital, treated, recycled papers.
- An optional protector coat unit that provides scratch-and-scuff resistance.
- A new Ricoh Digital Front End (DFE) with an easy-to-use graphical user interface.
- Enhanced workflow software plug-ins.
- Paper width of 165 mm to 520 mm (6.5” to 20.5”), length of 101.6 to 660.4 mm (4” to 26”) and weight of 40 gsm to 250 gsm.
- Paper types: Plain, general offset coated, IJ coated, IJ treated and recycled.
- Non-printed area is 2 mm from paper’s edge.
- Ricoh-developed Digital Front End – TotalFlow Print Server R600A – that includes native support for a wide range of data streams, together with JDF and advanced colour management support.
- Compatible with Ricoh Process Director.
For more information please contact Copywell by visiting www.copywell.com.
For information on the Ricoh Pro VC60000, please call Don Black, Director of Sales for Ricoh Canada, at (416) 579-1458 or e-mail don.black@ricoh.ca.