PUBLICATION CENTER

It’s not your typical point-of-sale environment, but Emerson sees opportunity in promoting its brand and products.

Now, with the recent addition of a Canon iPF8000S from LexJet and a Stuebing BindQuip Calendar Slide Binding Machine, Emerson is able to print and frame varying production runs of posters quickly, efficiently, and most importantly: inexpensively.

Bryan McGovern, distribution sales manager for Emerson – Control Techniques, is in the midst of a 3,000-long run of posters with about 200 variations, depending on the product and the distributor’s shop where the posters will hang.

“The Canon has given us speed and flexibility. When we print out posters we’ll put the distributor’s logo on there to personalize the poster. We have a variety of industries we serve: bottling, packaging, automatic test, food industries, assembly, and pulp and paper, among others. It allows us to print posters for specific distributors in specific markets,” says McGovern. “We had been printing posters on an older HP, and it was taking 15-20 minutes to do a nice print, but with the new printer it takes less than two minutes. The other key is that when it comes off the printer, it’s dry, whereas with the other printer would take half an hour to dry.”

McGovern was also looking for a way to frame the posters printed on LexJet TOUGHcoat Water-Resistant Polypropylene to add stability and rigidity to the hanging prints. Framing them individually, even with an inexpensive plastic frame system, was still time-consuming and more expensive for long production runs than what the time and budget would allow.

So, McGovern decided to pay more on the front end for a machine that would frame the posters top and bottom with powder-coated steel bars. The BindQuip machine McGovern purchased, which is basically a metal brake typically used in shops that specialize in calendar and poster production, runs for about $5,250. There are other versions available in different widths and that are automatic.

“You put the pre-cut piece of metal in, slide the poster in, and it has a foot brake and it comes down and does a double-bend that puts a metal edge on the top and bottom of the poster. The one on top has a hook in the center so you can easily tack it to the wall or hang it. The bottom piece adds a little weight to hold it flat on the bottom so it stretches it a little bit and pulls it straight,” explains McGovern. “If you go out and buy a frame, it ends up costing you significantly more; about $2 versus .37 per unit. So we save more than $1.50 per frame by using this system. If you’re only doing a few posters, you wouldn’t buy one, but it pays for itself after about 3,000 posters.”