Customers share their continuous feed inkjet solution journeys with hundreds of successful, printing company leaders.
SCREEN Americas recently participated in their eighth consecutive year of the invitation-only Inkjet Summit. The annual Inkjet Summit, presented by nGage Events and NAPCO Media, looked a bit different in 2020, as this was the first time the event was held in a virtual environment. Instead of an intimate group of just over 100 printing executives gathering in person to view and experience printing equipment in action, 855 conference attendees, including 128 VIP and 727 general audience, came together via Zoom meetings to learn of industry technology manufacturers’ best practices and new products and hear their respective customer colleagues’ experiences via relevant case studies in the areas of direct mail, transactional, and commercial print markets.
VIP attendees were invited to meet with sponsors in special one-on-one virtual meetings throughout the Summit to better understand solutions, define their specific requirements, and begin the process of discussing solutions. All conference participants were welcome to attend the sponsor-driven case study presentations.
The conference kicked off with the direct mail market and featured a case study delivered by Michael Nahan, CEO and joint owner of Nahan Printing in St. Cloud, Minnesota. What was expected to be an 18-24 month journey of transitioning work from three web presses to the SCREEN Truepress Jet520ZZ was accomplished in just eight months. As a provider of direct mail catalogs for national luxury brands, Nahan stated that they were looking for a manufacturer of inkjet technology that would work with them and match the quality that they had achieved on their high-end, heat-set web offset presses. They found that manufacturer in SCREEN. “Truly one of the things that we see is the predictability and the repeatability of quality,” offered Nahan. And as Nahan Printing looks to the future, he predicts that more and more of the printing done today will move to a digital format. With a partner like SCREEN, he feels his company is well equipped to succeed, “One of the things we found with SCREEN was that their technology was very robust.”
Addressing the commercial print market was Rob Nawfel, president of Prisma Graphic, a SCREEN customer based out of Phoenix, Arizona. Nawfel expressed the importance of conducting due diligence when looking for a high-speed inkjet printer, and never leaving a question unasked. According to Nawfel, “Ask yourself, ‘Is it the right timing for us? Is the technology where we need it to be from a commercial standpoint? Do we have the right workflows in place to support that type of technology? Is our organization overall ready to embrace this new technology and carry us into the future? And do we currently have the work to support it and deliver a positive ROI?’” When Prisma narrowed down their choices to just two manufacturers, they looked at those companies’ three- to five-year roadmaps to see how the manufacturers planned to evolve and adapt to the commercial market. “We felt that SCREEN understood what we were asking for and really understood what our customers’ challenges were,” shared Nawfel. Prisma ultimately chose the SCREEN Truepress Jet520HD to catapult them into the future.
Bruce Jacobsen, vice president at Bridgeport National Bindery in Agawam, Massachusetts, wrapped up the conference by presenting a case study to the transactional market, sharing the journey Bridgeport experienced when ultimately deciding on the SCREEN Truepress Jet520HD. When asked what the high speed inkjet printer has done for Bridgeport, Jacobsen said, “What we’ve found with the press after its installation is that it has given us three things that we thought were extremely important: It has given us speed of production; it has given us quality of production; and it has given us flexibility in production.” Bridgeport’s dream was to be able to print 20,000 books of one instead of one order of 20,000 books. “As a result of those three things, it’s enabled us to deliver value to our customers,” concluded Jacobsen.
According to Mark Schlimme, vice president of marketing at SCREEN Americas, SCREEN case studies speak volumes to potential customers, “We believe our customers are the most powerful marketing message we have in our arsenal.” The goal to sharing these case studies with the leaders and innovators of the printing industry is to let SCREEN customers speak for themselves. Schlimme adds, “If you’re in the middle of evaluating continuous feed inkjet solutions and you’re not talking to SCREEN, I would ask myself, ‘Why wouldn’t I?’”