A different way of seeing things is also evident in the names of its two high-tech inkjet lines: “Rather than calling them boring ‘Line 1’ and ‘Line 2’, we thought we’d honour the two guys who worked so hard on them during installation, ensuring they got up and running as quickly as they did,” says managing director Alan Purvis. “Consequently they are named Barry and Jerry.”

MetroMail is a marketing and transactional mail producer based in Seaham, near the coast of County Durham. It operates across all sectors but mostly within the mail order and financial services sector. 

Purvis says “A variety of ‘best of breed’ equipment allows us to focus on meeting customer demand as efficiently and as profitably as possible. We have a number of machines for direct mail enclosing, transactional enclosing, litho printing and plastic card affixing. 

“Our entire operation runs on a software platform written entirely in-house, covering every aspect of production and support functions, from MIS through to purchasing and time/attendance. This allows us to have an entirely integrated system built specifically for our needs – essentially to be perfect!”

The firm has invested heavily in digital printing and finishing kit in recent years. A £5m investment in Xerox printers is now being replaced by a further £6m investment cycle, this time largely in Canon kit. This includes sheetfed and roll-fed toner presses plus the company’s first inkjet presses, a pair of Canon Océ ColorStream 3900 Z full-colour duplex lines.

This model was only officially announced at the Hunkeler innovationdays event in Switzerland in February, but MetroMail got the first two in Europe a little ahead of that, in December. Canon’s ColorStream 3000 family was developed by the Océ factory in Poing, near Munich, as opposed to its JetStream family of inkjets that are made for it by Miyakoshi in Japan. The 3900 is the fastest of the family, running up to 127m/min on web widths of up to 540mm. 

Unlike the broadly faster JetStreams, ColorStreams use the adapted chassis of the VarioStream series of roll-fed toner presses and so are compatible with many of the same paper handling and finishing ancillaries. 

The ‘Z’ models are more or less half the physical width of other ColorStreams, although they take the same web widths. This is done by rearranging the inkjet head system, which originally retracted sideways for cleaning, maintenance and capping, so that on the Z the heads retract up and lengthways. 

 “We have a purpose-built climate-controlled room for the digital kit,” Purvis explains. “In order to position the machines to get the optimum workflow around them, the fact they were narrower than other machines we looked at, including the standard 3900, was actually a big benefit as it allowed us to leave space for any future additional machines.”

Canon is reluctant to be pinned down to specific prices but UK marketing manager Chris Aked says that “a ColorStream line with feeder and finishing can typically range between £1m and £1.5m”.

“We went through a complex and thorough tender process for the replacement,” says Purvis. “Our primary focus was to use the ColorStream to improve efficiency in the printing of transactional mail. A lot of small batch runs on differing pre-printed material were affecting our margins – something we focus on constantly. We needed to find a way to be perfect in how we produce this work with maximum efficiency.

“We obtained two Hunkeler cutting and stacking units as part of the deal. This allows us to go from reels to full-colour cut and stacked A4/A3 sheets, ready to move to our enclosing or wrapping lines.”

The toner engines ordered at the same time for MetroMail include sheetfed monochrome Océ VarioPrint 6320s, two VarioPrint 6160s and a VarioPrint 6250. The company also bought two Canon imagePress C7011 colour cut-sheet toner presses and four Canon imageRunner 5250 multi-function printers. All the new presses are all controlled by Océ Prisma software architecture, including Trueproof software for pre-press, and the MyMail Hybrid mail system.

Making margin

Purvis explains the reasoning between the mix of colour inkjet and mono toner presses: “I’ve mentioned margin focus and there is a point at which all of the input costs and therefore profitability diverge into two streams, inkjet or traditional litho and mono overprint. DM work is invariably extremely colour-rich and static and in these instances we litho and overprint on a toner machine. 

“Obviously as customers move more to variable imagery, more and more work will go inkjet.

“This is our first foray into inkjet printing and so we had to be absolutely certain of the technology as well as the support, guidance and handholding we would get from the supplier,” Purvis says. 

“It’s a scary position to be in, committing such large sums into a technology arena we’ve not been in before. 

“Canon proved to be the best in all of the areas we had considered as important. The people support we received was outstanding, from technical specialists to senior management – they understood our business, our needs and very importantly our business culture.”

Tech options

Rather than specifying a particular technology, the company set out its requirements and let the suppliers come up with what they thought would be the best option: “Our tender package was for toner-based continuous and cut sheet as well as continuous inkjet,” says Purvis. 

“In fact we didn’t specify any technology in our tender – we left it for the knowledge experts in each supply company to recommend solutions. We supplied volumes, SLAs and the vision we had. Suppliers then interpreted that and provided initial solutions, which we then refined over the course of six months.”

Installation went very well, according to Purvis: “The ColorStream was installed and operational in a staggeringly short timescale during December,” Purvis says. “Engineers and project staff worked with our team on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, with many of them having long drives home after leaving our site. That’s true commitment!

“Our in-house workflow system was adapted to integrate into the Canon Prisma system and the post-processing equipment was supplied new at the same time as the printers.

“The operators are loving working with the new printers and the results are outstanding. We used to produce a job for a customer which took almost an hour to run. This had multiple stock types and very small volumes. It now takes just nine minutes, start to finish and now ticks our minimum gross margin box.”

Purvis reports that there have been no problems, with the hardware at least. “Frustratingly for us, it was paper that let us down and caused us to delay our go-live,” Purvis says. “As we’d not been in this space before, everything was new. We tried lots of paper types and then when we found one which suited our needs, we had a long lead time to get it. Paper is key.

“I guess another issue we found is that colour becomes very emotive with customers. It takes a skill to be able to work with digital colour images to ensure that customers get what they want.

“Uptime and service have been really great and we’ve absolutely no issues there.”

Purvis says the best thing about the new kit set-up is “clearly the speed and the integration of post processing equipment.” Encouragingly he adds: “We’ve not come across anything it can’t do at the moment.”

As to what the new machines have brought to the business, Purvis says: “It will eventually increase turnover, but we’ve never focused on turnover; for us it’s margin and as a result pre-tax profit.” 

“These machines will firstly allow us to do what we do now, but more efficiently and therefore boost our bottom line. Then when our integration has finished, we’ll look to grab market share for this type of printing, increase turnover but importantly do this work smarter and more efficiently than the market.”

That sounds pretty positive. Would he buy this type of press again, or recommend it to others? “Absolutely to both!” 

SPECIFICATIONS

Process Single-pass drop-on-demand piezo inkjet

Engines Twin-unit duplex with turner system

Drop sizes 5 to 12 picolitres

Colours 4/4

Max web width 540mm

Max print width 540mm

Stock weight range 60-160gsm

Speed 127m/min at 600x480dpi or 100m/min at “perceived” 1,200dpi

Price £1m to £1.5m depending on paper handling options

Contact Canon 01737 220000 www.canon.co.uk

COMPANY PROFILE 

MetroMail was established in 1988 and operates today from a 13,000sqm production facility in Seaham, County Durham. It specialises in direct mail and transactional enclosing, polywrapping and printing. It employs 207 people and turnover last year was £16m, with a 10% pre-tax profit margin.“This is something our team are extremely proud of, having invested heavily in efficiency and process waste reduction back in 2002 before many people even in the industry knew what the term ‘lean’ meant,” says managing direct Alan Purvis. 

Why it was bought...

MetroMail was keen to have the latest equipment in order to maximise its efficiency and maintain profit margins. The Canon machine proved to be the “best in all the areas we considered important,” says managing director Alan Purvis.

How it has performed...

Very well; the company has no real gripes. “Uptime and service have been really great,” says Purvis. “We’ve not come across anything it can’t do at the moment.”