Astoria Graphics Uses Two Xerox iGen3 Digital Presses to Become A Marketing Solutions Company for Clients

NEW YORK and ROCHESTER, N.Y., April 27, 2006 -- Astoria Graphics Inc. has installed two Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) iGen3™ 110 Digital Production Presses to expand its short-run, on-demand digital print business.

The commercial printer uses the digital color presses to produce jobs such as personalized direct mail campaigns, sales and marketing brochures, postcards, manuals, newsletters, and point-of-purchase signs and displays. The work is done for advertising agencies and customers in the financial, retail, insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Each Xerox iGen3 press is producing more than 750,000 pages a month, but the company expects to reach 1 million pages a month per machine by the end of the year. "The New York City marketplace demands quick-turnaround, short-run, high-quality jobs and the iGen3 press delivers" said Ron Koff, co-president, Astoria Graphics Inc. "The new digital presses will also help us become more of a marketing solutions company for our clients"

According to Koff, Astoria Graphics chose the 110 page-per-minute Xerox iGen3 presses over competitive equipment for their speed, image quality and ability to handle larger paper sizes (up to 14.33" x 22.5") - a plus for commercial printers. The larger paper sizes enable the company to place more images on a sheet, resulting in cost reductions and higher productivity. Koff also cited Xerox’s strong partnerships with workflow software companies such as XMPie as a benefit to his company and clients.

Koff said he believes the Xerox iGen3 digital presses will complement Astoria Graphics’ offset printing business by being able to produce short-run, quick-turnaround jobs of a product launch before large quantities of the job are printed on offset.

According to Koff, the company is using Xerox’s ProfitQuick™ business development software tool to help compare the costs and profits for all products - digital or offset - to ensure their print operation is running efficiently. ProfitQuick is part of the Xerox ProfitAccelerator™ Digital Business Resource portfolio.

Among the applications the company is printing on the Xerox iGen3 digital color presses:

* Quarterly reports for a real estate fund - Prior to installing the Xerox iGen3 presses, Astoria Graphics printed the reports on an offset press, which was labor- and time-intensive. The company now produces the perfect-bound, 300-page, full-color report digitally, delivering 500 copies to its clients within 24 hours as opposed to five days, for the same price and quality of offset. The iGen3 press also allows the company to give customers a complete bound proof of the report - and the ability to see, touch and feel what the final product will look like before going to print - something that more and more customers request.
* Marketing collateral for global clients - As part of its affiliation with the International Printers’ Network, a global alliance of leading companies in the printing, visual communications and graphic arts industries, Astoria Graphics is leveraging the Xerox iGen3 to work with clients in England, Sweden and Australia who often conduct business in New York. These customers were previously forced to deal with long lead times and high distribution costs by producing the materials on offset equipment in their respective countries. Now they can continue working on their signage, briefing books and presentation materials up to the last minute and send the digital file to Astoria Graphics. The company then prints it on-demand locally, and the marketing collateral is ready when the clients arrive in New York.
* Personalized direct mail for a large investment bank - To help the firm’s top clients receive timely, relevant information, Astoria Graphics is producing a mailer that is sent weekly by the investment firm’s financial advisers. The mailer is completely personalized and consists of an 8-page brochure with a client’s ROI, a planning summary and a survey on the adviser’s performance; a postcard; and a return envelope.

Astoria Graphics is using Xerox FreeFlow™ DocuSP™ color servers and Creo Inc. color servers on both iGen3 presses so the company can offer clients all options for color printing and variable data printing solutions.

The commercial printer is also seeing its digital monochrome page volume increase 7 percent to 10 percent with its two Xerox DocuTech™ 6135 Production Publishers. They produce 4.5 million pages a month combined to print jobs such as training manuals and reports.

About Astoria Graphics Inc.
Established in 1916, Astoria Graphics Inc. is a fourth-generation, 90-person company offering digital, offset and large format printing, as well as graphic design, bindery, mailing and fulfillment services. They have been a Xerox customer since 1969 and have two manufacturing locations: a digital facility in Manhattan and a state-of-the-art offset printing site in Moonachie, N.J.

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Neil Fagenbaum

Media Contact

Xerox Corporation

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