CASE STUDY: EPSILON

In many respects, says Nate Milliken, “the printing is easy. It’s the finishing that’s hard.” He doesn’t mean it’s hard in terms of handling the volume. His company, Epsilon, which he serves as Vice President of Operations for the St. Louis, Mo., production facility, is a master of manufacturing direct mail in runs of millions. What’s challenging is making sure that the finishing can change in the same way as the printing has been transformed—into a flexible, adaptive process that plays to all the strengths of the digital presswork it supports. Partnership makes it possible, and this white paper examines the cooperation among Epsilon, MBO America, and Screen Americas that sets Epsilon’s direct mail capabilities apart. It is a story of what happens to productivity when high-speed, high-volume digital inkjet printing is complemented by the dynamics of modular finishing—a new approach that isn’t constrained by the norms of conventional postpress. It also tells how Epsilon progressed from a cut-sheet color printing workflow to continuous-feed color production, dramatically improving throughput and efficiency as it did so.