MELVILLE, N.Y. – Canon Solutions America, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canon U.S.A., Inc., today announced that North American Communications (NAC), a dynamic direct mail marketing company based in Duncansville, PA, recently acquired an Océ ColorStream 3900 color digital press with the goal of advancing the company’s inkjet capabilities and providing customers with the most cutting-edge direct mail options available.

For over thirty-five years, NAC has been redefining what it means to be a print provider by adapting to changes in the industry and being attuned to the ever-changing needs of its customers within the direct mail marketing space. Guided by a third generation management team, NAC plans to continuously expand its services by tapping further into inkjet technology, which thus far has allowed them to support the growing demand for highly targeted and personalized direct mail campaigns. Currently, NAC produces and mails over 5 million direct mail packages per day with additional support from its facility in Juarez, Mexico. NAC’s pristine reputation in the financial, insurance and marketing industries results from decades of innovation and a commitment to providing the highest level of service and value to its clients.

Canon Solutions America’s ongoing commitment to advancing customers’ print output through cutting-edge inkjet technologies is demonstrated in the successful installation of the Océ ColorStream 3900 inkjet press into NAC’s already expansive print fleet. According to NAC, the addition of the ColorStream 3900 enables the company to offer high-speed color and monochrome production on short and long-run jobs with increased flexibility and incredible quality. NAC’s forward-thinking decision to amplify its inkjet capabilities has enabled them to pursue new business opportunities and will give the company a competitive advantage in the variable data printing market.

“We have preferred Canon presses and services for almost as long as we’ve been in business,” said Rob Herman, president and COO of NAC. “The confidence we have in Canon Solutions America’s products, services, and people makes it very difficult for us to go anywhere else. Having evaluated the competition, we see ourselves continuing to evolve with Canon’s product lines as we believe Canon is providing far better solutions than any other supplier.”

NAC recognized that through the dramatically increased substrate availability, their customers could generate greater ROI from one-on-one, dynamic marketing material. As one of the fastest growing inkjet presses in the industry, the Océ ColorStream 3900 turned out to be a perfect fit for the printing needs of NAC’s versatile customer base. The Océ ColorStream 3900’s production and media flexibility enables a simplified transition of applications and business models to more sophisticated documents with variable personalization and smarter communication in color. Furthermore, the Océ ColorStream 3900 eliminates the need to preprint templates, which gives NAC additional time to make creative decisions closer to the mail cycle and therefore improving the overall quality of the prints.

“We thought we had to sacrifice quality to move into this environment, but with the ColorStream 3900 we don’t have to and we are running jobs at incredibly fast speeds,” added Herman. “We have experienced a tremendous increase in capabilities over a short period of time and our customers have responded. We expect this to be the foundation for a full transition from toner to inkjet in the near future.”

“Our investment in this technology underscores our clients’ growing focus for 1:1 marketing to their customers and prospects through variable data print,” said CEO Nick Robinson. “As an important complement to our traditional print services, the ColorStream delivers additional flexibility and speed-to-market for our customers.”

With the high volume of mail packages being mailed daily, NAC required a robust workflow solution to compliment the Océ ColorStream 3900, and thus the Océ PRISMAproduction output management system was put in place. The Océ PRISMAproduction Server provides a single workflow and output management system, which is able to accept a wide range of industry-standard data and output to virtually any printer, as well as to enable NAC to gain greater efficiency in production, lower labor costs and reduce turnaround time. Finally, as PRISMAproduction is completely scalable, NAC can build in additional functionality when needed.

NAC chose to pair the system with the Océ TrueProof software. TrueProof ensures that applications from external sources are ready for production before they go to a physical production printer – avoiding unnecessary downtimes due to faulty files or improper layouts, NAC is able to save costs and increase performance. Additionally, Océ TrueProof’s high-volume digital proofing system works like a virtual printer, enhancing and streamlining prepress proofing by eliminating the need for paper-based proofing steps that lead to consumable, personnel and setup time related costs. Finally, the capability to provide a pixel-precise calculation for color coverage and ink consumption has allowed NAC to provide more accurate job estimates to their consumers. According to NAC, they are now less likely to price themselves out of an opportunity thanks to the TrueProof software.

“With the constant surge of new technologies and the inkjet space growing exponentially, we realize that it is our responsibility to find new and groundbreaking solutions for our customers that can adapt easily to their needs,” said Francis McMahon, senior vice president, Marketing, Production Print Solutions, Canon Solutions America. “We value the feedback from our customers and couldn’t be more excited to hear that NAC has believed in our product and service approach for so many years.”