Chanhassen, Minn. - IWCO Direct, a leading national provider of direct marketing solutions, demonstrated its commitment to creating value for direct mail customers in the area of postage optimization and distribution with the installation of three Siemens Paramount delivery barcode sorters at its Hamburg, Pa., facility. The installation brings a total of five delivery barcode sorters to the Hamburg facility, which help customers reduce postage costs by commingling mail into common mail trays and are designed to sort the most difficult mail pieces required by today's leading direct marketers.

This installation is the next phase in creating a common production platform across IWCO Direct's national footprint to allow customers to leverage IWCO Direct's volume and industry-leading postal strategy to maximize postage savings.

"With postage costs a continuing concern for direct marketers, we remain committed to having the best and most sophisticated postal strategy in the industry," said Jim Andersen, IWCO Direct president and CEO. "The installation of these Siemens Paramount delivery barcode sorters shows our focus on providing customers not only with the lowest postage costs, but more predictable in-home delivery dates and increased response rates for their customer acquisition, loyalty and engagement programs."

IWCO Direct pioneered single-pass commingling in 1995 and continues to lead the industry in commingling capacity and technology. Commingling is the automated sorting of multiple mailstreams into a common mail tray to drive the highest level of postage discounts. Commingling results in reduced postage costs and faster time to market, which can lead to increased response rates.

IWCO Direct provides true commingling services that impact both postage and destination entry discounts for direct marketers. While some mailers manually combine mail trays onto single destination postal skids and refer to that process as commingling, that process only impacts destination entry discounts, not postage discounts like IWCO Direct offers.

The Siemens Paramount delivery barcode sorter is the most exciting, next generation sorter on the market today. It sets the standard for all high speed transports and provides a throughput of up to 62,000 mail pieces per hour, with net speeds approaching the mid-40's depending on the particular package. It is unmatched in speed, accuracy, versatility and reliability.