by Melissa Donovan
Print shops build their businesses around steady work, regular requests that are often scheduled on a monthly basis. These jobs generally leave room for the sporadic surprise, but not much—running a tight ship is the name of the game these days, without much downtime available press to press.
Some years, jobs pop up and disrupt regular requests and steady work. Take 2024, it’s a presidential election year and direct mail will be in full force. How does a printer capture all this extra revenue, while placating its regular customers? Outsourcing is one option. Another is adding a powerful digital press to the lineup, one that not only addresses those higher volumes of work coming through the door, but also produces existing work more efficiently.
Full Circle of Offerings
Wallace Graphics began in 1987 as a one-man shop and today is a full-service commercial printer.
The business is run out of two locations in GA, Duluth and Johns Creek, the former holds print production and acts as warehouse, the latter is where its promotional and apparel work occurs and also houses a warehouse. Between the two spaces the square footage equals 100,000 and 145 staff are employed. Both locations enable the print provider to reach customers all over the U.S. and offer offset and digital printing, in wide and narrow formats.
Applications range from direct mail pieces like brochures, postcards, and catalogs to wide format work like custom wallcoverings, vinyl banners, and floor graphics. Direct mail is a large portion of the commercial printer’s business, it’s offered services for the application for over 20 years. This means it not only prints the materials, but also addresses/labels, offers barcode tracking, and mails across the entire U.S.
Wallace Graphics has a strong background in digital print, with an introduction to the medium sometime in the early 2000s. “For nearly 20 years, we used digital printing primarily for small runs that were too small to print on our 40-inch presses and variable data letters. Naturally sheet count thresholds increased as digital presses grew in both number and sheet size during that time,” admit Jake Wallace, VP, and Jonathan Wallace, president, Wallace Graphics.
Add On While Maintaining
In 2023 the company purchased the HP PageWide Advantage 2200 to expand its capabilities. Looking at addressing challenges like “outputting more volume with less square feet, reducing the number of stages in production, and producing existing work more efficiently,” according to the Wallaces, made the press the right candidate for the job.
The HP PageWide Advantage 2200 presents new revenue opportunities for the print provider. “It gives us the capability to compete in direct mail markets we weren’t cost competitive in the past,” note the Wallaces.
A presidential election year, they anticipate direct mail requests to be much higher than other non-election years. The HP PageWide Advantage 2200 will allow Wallace Graphics to maintain production numbers for its year round customers and add on additional work.
Finishing Up
Complementing its presses, specifically on the direct mail side of things, is a range of finishing devices from MBO.
Part of the lineup is the MBO DPS 60 Dynamic Perf & Score Unit, a sheeter, and folding units, which are able to handle almost any folded piece that ultimately ends up in the mail stream. Another advantage to the configuration, it provides the flexibility needed to move jobs that could print offset to inkjet due to finishing efficiencies.
A recent upgrade to the MBO setup was a Palamides stacker, adding it to the backend of the system allows for handling of cut sheets.
“After seeing several MBO finishing lines in production, it gave us the comfort needed to move into the roll-to-roll environment. In addition to the comfort level, it opens all kinds of opportunities to our company that we have not had in the past,” say the Wallaces.
Go Big
With state-of-the art printing and finishing technology, Wallace Graphics produces direct mail pieces faster and at a lower cost point. “The power of this equipment allows us to go after larger, program-style business that we couldn’t compete with in the past due to cost and front end capabilities,” conclude the Wallaces.
May2024, DPS Magazine
