When it came time to make a decision on the digital printing path it needed to take — toner or inkjet — the executives at direct mail and transactional specialist Impact of Minneapolis, Minnesota, followed a simple business axiom: If you don’t take care of your customers, someone else will.

After auditioning all of the major competitive offerings in the inkjet space, the executive team at Impact had a bit of a conundrum: Did it make sense for the company to go with a cutsheet device or a continuous feed press? After all, its direct marketing mail tended to consist of longer runs, while the transactional statement jobs were short run.

“We felt that the quality that we saw on Canon Solutions America’s platform was going to be able to serve direct mail as well as transactional mail,” Johnson relates. “The fact that Canon Solutions America offered a roll-to-roll and a cutsheet solution was attractive in that we could drive both of those devices from the PRISMA software.”

While the presses have only been in action since last December, the results have been highly encouraging. The  ColorStream 3900Z inkjet press has been the go-to device for the longer runs, ably constructed to handle the “white paper in, full-color variable paper out” needs for Impact. The ColorStream 3900Z inkjet press has increased per-hour productivity and can do it at a lower cost per page. One of the other benefits provided by the ColorStream 3900Z inkjet press is the use of dynamic perfing inline (post-press dynamic perfing is done with the VarioPrint i300 inkjet press).

One of the biggest benefits the company has reaped from the inkjet press installations was the opportunity to decommission five digital toner printers. Several more are slated to be taken out of service by the end of the calendar year.

Jon Downing, chief technology officer, is especially impressed with the ColorStream 3900Z inkjet press and how it enables Impact to provide more added value. With the full-color inkjet capability, clients no longer need to provide offset-printed shells for black monochrome laser overprinting.

“Now, we’re capturing that revenue opportunity with respect to the color on the page,” he says.

The first six months were difficult for Impact, Downing admits. Because his company wasn’t a typical commercial printer, the new inkjet presses did require some fundamental changes, particularly in regard to color management and overall workflow. Impact did not formerly have a color prepress or premedia department — but that has all changed. And while Impact hasn’t reached the mountaintop, per se, the training and support provided by Canon Solutions America and the addition of staff experienced in color management have moved the company along the learning curve quickly.

“We were talking to them even before the equipment was installed to start building an understanding of a ‘white paper in, full-color document out’ process. There have been some challenges and hiccups.

“Color management is a big issue. Some customers don’t have a really good target — they just want it to look the same as the last time it was printed.”

As Impact becomes more proficient with the inkjet presses from an Xs and Os standpoint, one of the greater challenges will involve lead generation and adjusting the way the company currently sells to its customers.

Johnson notes that as many as five more toner boxes could be put out to pasture, and once the conversion is complete, Impact will have no more than a couple such units in its operation. He estimates that about 50 percent of the firm’s volume has been moved over to the presses.

Currently, Impact is pushing 3.4 million feet through the ColorStream 3900Z inkjet press per month and another 600,000 through the VarioPrint i300 inkjet press. Those figures are certain to climb significantly in the near future.

“We are converting our big volumes as we go through the customer lists,” Johnson says. “As the preprinted shell supplies run out, we convert them. Our aspirations are a lot higher.”