ALOM Opens New In-House Print Center

Businesses can now print high-quality materials on demand and ship them to customers within minutes, using a new digital print center opened by ALOM.

Based in Fremont, California, ALOM is a contract packaging, fulfillment and supply chain management provider serving customers from 14 locations around the world. Its advanced fulfillment systems now include an integrated state-of-the-art HP Indigo press 5500, known for delivering offset look and feel as well as true photo quality.

As a result, end-users can now select items that they’d like printed from an easy-to-use interface integrated into ALOM’s e-commerce solutions—right from a customer shopping cart; printing is completed and the documents are shipped within minutes.

The solution is especially economical for businesses with multiple pieces of collateral that are rarely printed, but where print quality is important.

ALOM’s customers can also place orders for short-run collateral to replenish inventory. Replenishment of printed matter can be done immediately, and the risk of being out-of-stock has virtually been eliminated. In addition, shorter production runs become economical.

“I am excited that we are adding a more sustainable print option for our customers,” says ALOM’s CEO, Hannah Kain. “With shorter print runs, customers reduce the risk of printing copies that will never be used and have to be scrapped. This helps our customers run greener, more cost-efficient operations.”

Variable print runs can be produced in real-time for targeted marketing campaigns, training materials and personalized information.

The HP Indigo press 5500 is a new, advanced, digital press. The 4-color ink press prints up to 1,200 dots per inch (dpi). Designed for the production of marketing collateral, direct mail, photo specialty products, books and manuals—including higher-volume production in centrally controlled, multiple-press environments—the solution delivers the offset look and feel afforded by HP Indigo technology and liquid HP ElectroInk.

Capable of printing over 1.5 million color pages or more than five million monochrome pages per month, the HP Indigo press 5500 is a truly universal production device. It’s also the one true digital offset press that combines the look and feel of traditional offset with genuine photo quality.

Pre-press is done in-house using a multi-platform environment.

The Print On Demand (POD facility) is managed by Mark Pensa, ALOM’s new print manager. Pensa has more than 20 years of printing industry experience and recently ran the printing company Merchant Mailing.