Envelope Press Saves Time, Money for Ringling College

After crunching the numbers, Chuck Brantley says investing in a new digital envelope press was a “no-brainer.”

Brantley, Mail Services manager at Ringling College of Art & Design, learned that his Sarasota, FL-based art college was outsourcing all of its bulk mail, incurring annual costs of about $12,000, just in fees alone. Seeing an immediate opportunity to save money for the college by bringing some of this outsourced bulk mailing in-house, Brantley acquired a Xanté Impressia digital printing system. In October, the operation started printing envelopes.

“It was a great first step to open the door for more printing to come back into Ringling,” Brantley says. “We do very little printing on campus. We’re trying to cut costs and save money and be able to do some things that might have extra fees because of outsourcing that we can do in-house with a short ROI.”

See video of Ringling's mail operation.

Since the Impressia has come on board, Brantley says he has been very impressed by its envelope feeder. Having it on the side of the machine has been beneficial, and it runs smoothly, handling a variety of paper types.

Mail Services, which employs two full-timers and 15 part-time student workers, also uses Xanté’s iQueue X workflow software, which Brantley says is a user-friendly program that has helped the in-plant process variable data jobs on the Impressia.

One job that the Impressia has helped Mail Services take on is providing mailings using USPS Every Door Direct Mail to the communities surrounding two Ringling College facilities: Longboat Key Center for the Arts and the Englewood Art Center. With the Impressia, Brantley says, he is able to do the printing and sorting in-house, before the mailings are taken to the post office.

“I do all of the research as far as demographics and where we want to send those specific things,” he explains. “Without this, we never would have been able to do that.”

Brantley says the in-plant had calculated an approximately 18-month return on investment period and is currently on track to meet that prediction. He explains that ROI period was calculated by factoring in all of the jobs that had previously been outsourced that can now be completed using the Impressia.

Since the Impressia has arrived, Brantley says it has been the beneficiary of some positive word-of-mouth marketing from various departments on campus. He hopes the acquisition of the Xanté will be the first step in bringing in more print jobs.

“This allowed me to take small steps first and move into printing,” Brantley says. “We really don’t have any printing here for our faculty and staff. A lot of it is done offsite. It was a great first step to open the door for more printing to come back into Ringling.”