Océ, an international leader in digital document management and delivery and a Canon Group company, today announced that NRB, one of the main suppliers of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Belgium, has just inaugurated an Océ ColorStream 3500 printing line. An investment which is part of the renewal of its offering for managing document flows.

70 million color pages per year and more
Last January, NRB was the first Belgian company to roll out the inkjet-based continuous feed production press Océ ColorStream 3500. In fact, NRB installed two twin machines that offer unrivalled flexibility. The systems work well for both single-sided and two-sided printing depending on whether the machines are coupled or not in their L-shaped Twin configuration. This configuration allows up to 1010 A4 size images per minute to be printed in one to four colors with the extremely efficient HeadSafe technology that protects unused color heads when printing monochrome.

The future proof Océ ColorStream 3500 systems leave room for growth at the NRB printing center, which produced 70 million pages in 2011 – mainly invoices, statements, pay slips, etc. NRB ensures total document flow management, from the time the data are received up to the time they are deposited with the postal services.

Sebastian Landesberger, Executive Vice President Océ Production Printing: “The Océ ColorStream 3500 offers productivity and flexibility for high-speed color of transaction, TransPromo and direct mail applications. The twin configuration installed at NRB easily supports monthly volumes up to 32 million A4 which will open up new chances and offer growth potential for NRB and their color business. Furthermore, the optional 5th and 6th color can be utilized to add extra value to applications by using special inks, e.g. customers’ corporate colors when needed.”

White paper printing
“NRB must offer complete, comprehensive document management,” said Georges Poÿsat, in charge of presales. “Up to now, we have printed mainly in black & white over preprinted color documents – something we wanted to overcome. Color has become an important element for our customers’ image, they want to be able to reproduce their logo and their graphic identity properly. But solutions available on the market up to now did not satisfy their requirements in terms of cost, speed and flexibility. Since the advent of inkjet, we have found the best solution is the Océ ColorStream 3500. We can now produce digital documents in color, with a totally variable content, both in terms of text and images, on a white paper web.”

According to Georges Poÿsat, thanks to the savings obtained, the overall cost for color printing is now comparable to black & white. Flexibility is the key word: upstream from printing, it is possible to manage all the workflow with the Océ PRISMA tools, whatever the data entry point, which varies for each customer. “The comprehensive Océ approach was also a selection criterion,” added Mr Poÿsat. “Océ supplies not only the technology but also the support for the whole of the value chain and valuable help with the color approach, which is a new business for us.”

docTalk
The new Océ ColorStream 3500 lines are part of a much larger NRB project to restructure the document management offering, called docTalk. The whole chain has been re-engineered, from the flow to stuffing envelopes.

Daniel Eycken, NRB Marketing Manager, explains: “We had two challenges: start using color and integrate the digital communication channels – internet, email, mobile telephony, tablets... As an ICT company, we wanted to offer end-to-end solutions to satisfy all requirements: paper or digital documents with the same look & feel, and with every possible interaction between the two. Our customers are very realistic. Even though they are increasingly using the digital channels, in parallel they are still using paper document flows. But they want to optimize them and to make the most of their advantages.”

Personalized digital color printing plays a major role in this project which is open to new communication models such as TransPromo, combining the transaction document and the promotional message. “Invoices cost money,” continues Daniel Eycken. “Why not make them more appealing by using them as an optimized method for communicating with customers? We are now running TransPromo pilots. We are ready.”