July 7, 2003 -- Dye & Durham, Co. Inc. is seeing black these days in terms of its improving business situation and high-quality black-and-white printing from Heidelberg, as the full-service commercial printer in Toronto makes the switch to the Digimaster“ family of print systems with the purchase of two devices. For the wholly owned Canadian company with a long and reputable history -- particularly serving the legal profession -- it was an open-and-shut case to make the change to Heidelberg. "It was a very easy business case for Heidelberg -- namely our sales rep Jan Nybida -- to make because we were operating in the red under the lease with our previous digital equipment manufacturer," said Troy Zaban, Director of Graphic operations at the nearly 130-year-old firm. "By switching to the Digimaster print system and working with Heidelberg, we’ll be out of the red and into the black in the first year of our relationship." No objections to production, quality Dye & Durham purchased the Digimaster 9110m system for enabling digital magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) printing of documents at the full-engine speed of 110 images per minute, along with its ability to switch toner stations to enable the printer to use standard toner when MICR is not required. MICR fonts are automatically disabled when the MICR toning station is removed. In addition to improving its bottom line, Dye & Durham anticipates a significant difference in production and the quality of documents printed on its Heidelberg machines, now that they are using the Digimaster 9110 and Digimaster 9110m Network Imaging System. The machine’s MICR toner and special fonts and characters can be employed for a variety of applications, including printing legal papers, education course materials and financial documents for companies such as Consiel, York University, Mazda, SPM and TD Bank. "It’s really neat that Heidelberg offers the flexibility of switching from MICR to non-MICR," Zaban said. "We sent our MICR samples to an independent consultant, whose tests showed the quality of the MICR on the Digimaster was better than our previous system." To further bolster production, Dye & Durham also configured its machines with a range of hardware and software accessories, including Imagedirect“ 665 scanner, ImageSmart“ software, Hole Puncher 9110, booklet maker -- all done inline automatically. These accessories are producing higher-quality documents for Dye & Durham with greater efficiency. "The 665 scanner is so accurate that we don’t have to proof each sheet anymore," Zaban said. "With the inline hole puncher, the course packs we produce can now go directly from the machine to binder, and we don’t have to swap paper or purchase three-hole paper, which at high volumes provides a significant cost reduction." Zaban added that Dye & Durham is utilizing CoXist software to convert all of its files from a proprietary format to PDF. The Digimaster is enabling the Canadian company to achieve additional workflow efficiency and lower costs by printing on glossy paper stocks, which it was unable to do with its previous digital equipment. "In addition to a better engine and print quality, the Digimaster’s inline stitching doesn’t slow it down. It can actually stitch and print at the same speed," Zaban added. "The Digimaster system also has a server-based platform and the way we can receive PDF files is vastly superior to the proprietary format of our previous digital equipment, which required additional steps for file conversion." Increased productivity is critical for a firm whose commercial print division must turn around 90 percent of its printing jobs the next day. In all, Dye & Durham serves 80 percent of the legal profession’s printing needs across Canada; a large percentage of those documents are print on demand. Head of its class The education market is integral for Dye & Durham, in addition to the legal industry, where the firm’s high standard has earned it the distinction of preferred office supplier for office and legal supplies to the Canadian Bar Association. The Digimaster print system will enable the firm to augment its one-to-one print marketing capabilities for all of its clients. "We print course notes for York University and we’re doing new work now for a U.S. client with 55 schools," Zaban said. "We did a total of 21 million impressions last year -- 15 million in the education market -- and we plan to double that figure this year." Zaban said he couldn’t be happier to be working with Heidelberg. As they say in the legal profession, case closed!