Business Card Service Improves Throughput with HEIDELBERG Versafires

Business Card Service, Inc. (BCSI), a leader in ecommerce for the print industry, is committed to staying at the forefront of innovation. The family-owned trade printer, located in Burnsville, MN, is known for its industry-leading integration with clients’ online ordering systems. To improve production reliability and print quality, BCSI installed two Versafire digital presses from HEIDELBERG in the past two years. Since installation, the machines have cut turnaround times in half while reducing operational and service costs.

Decreasing Turn Times for Specialty Printing

BCSI pioneered electronic order transmission in 1983, long before the rise of the internet. Today, its orders are seamlessly received through clients’ websites and fully automated into the company’s production system. “Our customers love us because we make their jobs easier by eliminating a lot of the administrative time spent handling orders,” said Emily Myers, Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

While historically known for manufacturing business cards, the company has expanded its portfolio over the years – now producing a range of marketing collateral including folded brochures, saddle stitch booklets, note cards, and holiday cards. It has even recently added the ability for specialty print effects – like lamination, spot gloss, foil, and painted edges – for many of its products.

With 80% of its work produced digitally, BCSI needed a more advanced solution for its specialty printing needs, leading to the installation of a five-color Versafire EV in 2022. Previously using a wet-toner device, the Versafire’s dry toner formula is ideal for BCSI’s “sleeking” process—a digital finishing technique that adds special effects or foil to prints. While the Versafire’s five-color capabilities allow for inline spot gloss effects, the clear toner can alternatively serve as a mask in the four-step sleeking process, enabling BCSI to apply foil offline with precision.

“The Versafire handles sleeking extremely well compared to other digital presses we used in the past,” said Josh Platt, Process Improvement Manager. The Versafire’s excellent registration – both sheet-to-sheet and front-to-back – has further streamlined the process, cutting turnaround times in half for specialty print jobs.

Further decreasing turnaround times is the Versafire’s superior vacuum feed trays with optimized sheet control for lateral pile stabilization during feeding. BCSI, who produces everything from specialty jobs to traditional four-page marketing brochures, uses a wide variety of materials from 50# text to 130# cover. The Versafire feeds various thicknesses of paper with consistent reliability, outperforming other digital presses. According to Platt, “If someone asks, ‘Can you print on this material?’ I tell them the Versafire doesn’t care what it is – it’s just going to feed it!”

Checking All the Boxes

Impressed by the performance of its first Versafire, BCSI installed a second machine—the Versafire LP—earlier this year to replace aging digital equipment. When selecting a new press, Tom Marchessault, CEO, noted, “The Versafire checked all the boxes for us—ease of use, lower operating and service costs, and improved uptime.” Another key factor was the press’s ability to handle materials without the need to pre-treat them. This gives the company access to a broader range of materials, improving both availability and cost-efficiency. Since installation, the BCSI team has observed the Versafire produces denser solids and more vibrant colors, especially on coated stocks, compared to its other digital presses.

In addition to its impressive print quality, the Versafire’s ease of use has been a major advantage for BCSI. Marchessault explained that his team was able to operate the press independently just hours after training and became “experts” within a week. He added, “From a practical standpoint, we can pull employees from any department in the company and teach them to operate the machine in a short amount of time.” Maintenance is also straightforward as the Versafire actively sends alerts directly to service technicians should parts or toner need to be replaced. Often, a technician, along with replacement parts, are on site the same day.

“The preventative service is second to none,” said Craig Marchessault, CFO for BCSI. “Over the course of two years, we haven’t been down for more than a day between both machines. That’s a huge savings for us.”

BCSI has seen additional savings thanks to efficiency boosting features with Plockmatic booklet maker and Prinect Digital Front End (DFE). The Plockmatic, integrated with the Versafire LP, can produce saddle stitched books of up to 200 pages. Since it’s fully inline, it often matches the speed of BCSI’s offset presses in production, enabling the company to provide turnaround times as little as one day for booklets.

Utilizing Prinect DFE, BCSI can predefine templates and set up hot folders, enabling artwork to be automatically configured for customer proofs. Dropping a 40-page PDF into a hot folder, the prepress team can generate “customer friendly” proofs for approval within minutes — a process that previously demanded considerable time and resources.

“The Versafire has really exceeded our expectations on all fronts,” said T. Marchessault. “HEIDELBERG has delivered on every promise made during the initial sales pitch, continuing the strong track record we’ve had with them over the years.”

Source: Heidelberg

The preceding press release was provided by a company unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within do not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions.