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Conference Report: NAPL/MFSA Fulfillment Conf.
April 18, 2008

MFSA & NAPL Fulfillment Conference Draws Printers
Printers represented almost half of the nearly 200 attendees gathered in Napa Valley, CA, this week for the fourth annual joint NAPL & MFSA Fulfillment Conference, moderator/consultant Clint Bolte commented at yesterday’s opening session. The event, which wraps up today, featured a full day of facility tours on Wednesday at three print/mail operations, including 100,000-sq.ft. sheetfed and web printer Dome Printing ($30 million in sales) in nearby Sacramento. 

Like many printing companies, Dome was reactively pushed into mailing and fulfillment by customers who wanted the services. Ironically, the firm got out of mailing in the early 1990s after a 10-year stint, then resurrected the offering in 2005. It installed an HP Indigo 5500 digital press in October 2007 and a Kodak DigiMaster last month; the monochrome machine is running variable-data letters on preprinted 4-color shells. 

Lights-out Production

The conference included 1.5 days of presentations and a 90-minute general session with Joe Truncale, CEO of NAPL, entitled “Leadership in a Changing World.” A vendor exhibit featured names familiar to printing, including Canon, Domino, Kodak, HP and Xerox. Bolte noted that “mailing and fulfillment drives more digital print than anything else.” For example, TFC Inc., a fulfillment company in Napa, has a lights-out print room with a DocuColor 8000 that can produce variable-data jobs around the clock. 

Printer Gets Accredited

The Mailing & Fulfillment Service Assn. (MFSA) announced that Great Lakes Integrated, Cleveland, is the first printer to earn its fulfillment accreditation. The firm estimates that up to 20% of its sales last year were fulfillment related, while traditional print remains flat at about 55%. Separately, Joy Franckowiak, manager of transportation and postal affairs at mega coupon producer Cox Target Media/Valpak, Largo, FL, has been nominated to the MFSA board of director. 

Gas Options

With soaring fuel prices, more shippers – including printers – are looking into transportation alternatives such as rail, which is now six times more cost effective than trucking, according to presenter Bob Shaunnessey, executive director of the Warehousing Education and Research Council. “The average 18-wheeler averages only 6 mpg,” he said.

Posted by Mark Vruno on April 18, 2008 | Comments (0)